Dead Hours
by Queenspuppet
Summary: After the Rattray's kill the first vampire Sookie Stackhouse has the chance to meet, she assumes life in Bon Temps will go right back to boring-old-normal. But with local murders and a Queen waiting in the wings, normal can't last long. (Approximately the events of Dead Until Dark minus Bill and with a lot more Eric.)
1. Chapter 1

**AN: I own nothing! Not my first rodeo but I appreciate every little bit of support that a reader can lend. Please review and let me know what you think. This should be updated fairly regularly (I'm shooting for once a week) and I don't expect it to exceed 10 chapters. I'm not writing a lot of exposition because I figure most of you have read DUD or at least get the general gist of how a vampire works so the plot will move quickly. Feel free to ask questions!**

The blue, red and white lights of Bud Dearborn's police car were bouncing off Sam's doublewide and the faces peering out Merlotte's window. I put a hand up over my eyes as if to shield them from the flashing lights while I grimaced.

_...Fucking vampire deserved it..._

_...Had it comin'..._

_...Don't see what all the fuss is about, he was already dead..._

_...I'm buying more silver jewelry..._

_...If I'd known it was that easy to kill one I'd have..._

It was times like these when I really was ashamed to be one of the living. How anyone could take some poor vampire's death, well his second one, so lightly was just beyond me. I for one felt near to tears and I couldn't help but scold myself knowing my reason for feeling so sad was a little selfish. But this was the first vampire I had ever met! And he just strolled right into Merlotte's tonight and sat in my section as if he was this perfect surprise meant just for me. And he seemed real nice, a little lonely that was all.

I felt almost guilty that I hadn't just sat down and stayed with him all night, instead of giving those dirty hick no-goods the Rattrays the opportunity to get their vampire-draining paws on him.

I wondered what his name had been.

"Sookie? Sookie."

I pulled my hand away from my eyes and snapped my mental ears shut to focus on Andy Bellefleur standing in front of me.

_...Get Bud back for this, sticking me with Crazy Sookie..._

I opened my eyes real wide - to keep from narrowing them - and grinned real big - to keep from snapping at Andy.

"Sorry Andy, didn't mean to check out on you. I'm just a little shook up, I guess," I said and our eyes both flickered to my right where the drained and staked body of the only vampire I'd ever gotten to meet was slowly beginning to flake to bits.

"Right. Well, Sam here says the vamp sat in your section so you just go ahead and tell me what went on and then you'll be done here."

So I told Andy the entire thing, down to every silly mundane word exchanged between that vampire and I, and everything I saw go on with him and the Rattrays. I made sure to talk about the way Denise seemed to be trying to seduce the poor man with her neck.

"But you didn't seem him leave the premises with the Rattrays, is that right?"

I tried to remind myself that this was not my fault, that I might not have been able to do anything to help if I had caught the three in time, but I couldn't help but feel a little sick with guilt again.

"No," I said, and even to my ears I sounded like I was apologizing. "I was busy breaking up a fight between Jason and DeeAnn's date. We all were."

I would like to say that Bon Temps really pulled together after that. Tried to be real sorry 'bout what had happen, even made a formal apology. But that would be an awfully big lie to tell. In truth, very little was mentioned about the vampire after that night. It was discovered that the Rattrays had been sent to jail for vampire draining in the past, and that they took off out of Bon Temps the night we found the vampire in Merlotte's parking lot. I was hoping that maybe Bud or Andy or just plain anybody from the Sheriff's department was doing something more to catching Mack and Denise on the run, but I knew straight from their own heads that they weren't.

Gran was real torn up about the whole thing though. They ended up identifying the vampire from his wallet. He was Bill Compton and he'd been from our parts. Just across the cemetery from Gran and me as a matter of fact. But the worst of it for her was that Bill Compton had fought in the Civil War and if he had still been Undead or whatever they called it, I was sure she'd have wasted no time in picking his brain for her Descendants of the Glorious Dead friends. And while I'm sorry to admit it, it was only a few days before even I had to put Bon Temps Vampire Minute out of my mind.

The same night the Rats had drained Bill Compton at Merlottes, Maudette Pickens went and got herself strangled during what seemed to be some pretty rough sex. Sheriff's department was ready to blame it on vampires, turned out Maudette had been a fangbanger and had two little bitey holes on the inside of her thigh. And just a few days later Sam called me to check on my coworker Dawn after she didn't show up for work and I was the one to find her, gone the same way as poor Maudette.

No one in Renard Parish wasted any time waiting for an official news report or interview from the Sheriff's office. They just all showed up at Merlotte's the day Dawn was discovered and I had to take a double shift to cover her. Every single one of us working that night felt the strain of the crowd and their curiosity, even Lafayette who I had never seen shaken up before. I had tried checking on him throughout the night, during second long pauses in the dinner rush, but it wasn't until the bar was really closing and he was washing up in the kitchen that I had the opportunity to let my mental blocks down and pay attention to him.

_...What if they find out I was at her place that night...She kicked me out after buying the weed but maybe they won't believe...Don't know what kind of sick fucker does that shit...Sure as hell, wasn't no vampire though. Like they'd let the blood go to waste...Oh shit, Sookie's got that look on her face like she's listenin'..._

"Sookie, bitch-" Lafayette grabbed my arm just tight enough to hold me still.

"Lafayette. I'm so sorry! I really didn't mean-"

He looked around to make sure no one was listening or nearby and then focused his attention me, shaking me a little. Not hard or mean, just enough to keep me from rambling off on a useless apology. "Whatever you heard you'd better just say right now."

I winced but summarized in a whisper. "You were at Dawn's the night she was killed to sell her weed but she kicked you out. You didn't kill her. And...and you don't think a vampire did it like all the rest of town does because you know they would have drained her of blood."

Lafayette sighed and relaxed his grip on my arm. "I will say this, you may be a nosy little bitch for listening in," his voice was sharp but then the corner of his mouth snuck up and he gave me a reassuring smile. "But at least you listen good. Just don't let me catch you sneaking in on my privacy again, hear?"

"I know! I'm sorry, Laf really," I held my hands up at my sides. I waited until he looked more relaxed to continue. "How do you know so much about vampires anyways?"

He raised one glittering eyebrow at me before going back to loading dishes in the washer, I went ahead and helped by passing more to him.

"They're vampires, Sookie. Why would they waste the blood?"

"But they don't need it now, right? Cause of all the fake blood?"

He laughed at me. "Just cause yous don't need some don't mean yous not gonna try and get some." He emphasized the last two words with two thrusts of his hips and then laughed harder at my blush.

"What's Fangtasia?" I plucked the name out of his brain.

"Hooker!" Lafayette yelled at me.

"Lafayette it's late and I'm tired and it's not my fault!" I argued back. I gave him an impish smile. "You're brain is just as loud as your mouth at this point."

Lafayette sighed and rolled his eyes at me.

"It's a bar for fangbangers," Lafayette grumbled.

I got the rest from his mind. He had gone there with Dawn a week ago. It made him nervous but Dawn seemed to get a kick out if it. There was a tall, deliciously hot man sitting on a black platform with a red backdrop behind him and the image was vivid and stark in my friends thoughts. Then Dawn was walking down a dark hallway, grinning over her shoulder, her arm in the hand of a tall, blonde, masculine body. I jumped as Lafayette snapped his fingers in front of my eyes.

"Hooker!"

"Who was that blonde guy? Do you think he'd know anything?"

Lafayette turned green and took a step back. "You stay away from that vamp, Sookie. He'd eat you alive and he wouldn't leave anything behind like he did with Dawn which is all you need to know about what happened with them."

Well I've just never taken direction very well, I guess, 'cause shortly after Bud arrested my stupid ass brother for sticking his dick into two murdered girls – before not after, ew - I'd freshened my tan, shaved my legs, and put on my best sundress. Bright white covered in red poppies. Maybe I wouldn't talk to the big blonde vampire, but I thought I looked good enough to get answers out of somebody, a guess confirmed by the petite lady vamp at the door with hair as pale and soft as cottonweed. She licked her lips as I approached.

"If you have identification proving you are of legal drinking age you are most definitely welcome here tonight," she crooned at me.

"Aw, well that sure is kind of you," I trilled nervously, digging in my handbag and retrieving my license which I handed her.

"A Sookie?" She asked, scanning the card. "Well that is a new flavor."

I wasn't quite sure what to say to that so I took my i.d. back and scooted around her, barely missing her as she leaned in to whisper in my ear. "Be careful, some of the patrons bite."

I tried to pretend that it was the cool night that made me shiver.

I almost turned and walked right back out.

Everything was sex, blood, and pain. I could almost feel the stings of skin being hit by skin, leather, chain. Thoughts were flavored by the copper taste of blood. I felt sick, or near swooning at least and I stumbled and dodged away from others as I hurried over to a less crowded corner of the bar. I definitely did not fit in, surrounded by torn, sheer, dark fabrics and gleaming skintight leather. But I hadn't really expected to blend in, I just hadn't expected the brains around me to be so different, so much darker, easier to read and harder to get untangled from.

"Serving you will be a pleasure," a husky voice announced in front of me. The bartender looked like his Native American skin tone was being washed out under bad fluorescents, except there weren't any and he was flashing some pale fang my way. "And then later you may serve me."

His gaze was on my stunned face as I realized that I wasn't getting any thoughts from him, just a steady pressure. It felt like he was laying weights down just behind my eyeballs.

"Oh no," I said without really thinking it through. "I was just here to ask some questions." I was actually sort of thirsty but I didn't really want to ask this guy for any favors.

The bartender narrowed his eyes and opened his mouth to speak when we were interrupted. I jumped, not having heard any one approach, out loud or in my head.

"I believe a drink will be all she needs from you tonight Longshadow." The voice was smooth and deep but with a sharpness, like something sinking to the bottom of the dark part of the ocean. I turned to find the exact vampire I had been hoping to avoid tonight, and he was even more stunning in person than he had been in Lafayette's fear stained memory. I had to crane my neck to look into his face, which was focused in hard lines across the bar. After a silent pause he looked down, a wrinkle of amusement at the corner of his mouth and in his frozen blue stare.

"Um, just a water please," I said, realizing they were waiting for me. What I really needed was a shot of bourbon for some liquid courage but I didn't drink much and I still needed to make it back home.

"Nonsense," the blonde statue said with a mild frown. "It's on the house."

"Well that's real sweet of ya'll, but I'm not staying long."

"I insist," he said, and the pressure in my head returned, but much stronger now.

"Thank you, really. But just water."

The vampires both frowned at me, the bartender with irritation and suspicion, and the gorgeous blonde with something fierce and guarded that made me want to retreat and also hold still like a rabbit and hope he might just forget that I was standing there at all.

"If it is not the refreshments," he said in a clipped and careful accent that was most definitely not local and probably not even native to the English language, "Then what is it that brings you to Fangtasia, Ms. Stackhouse?"

"How'd you know my name?"

"Pamela," he nodded in the direction of the doorway where the little blonde was watching us over her shoulder. "She keeps me apprised of any visitors who might… interest me."

I swallowed. Well he really was the reason I came here, I realized, so I might as well talk with him. "I actually just came cause I had some questions."

I hadn't realized he'd been moving closer, leaning down towards me, until he suddenly pulled away with a roll of his eyes.

"Of course," he said dryly. "You may tell your university paper that we are not allergic to garlic and we do not need to invest in dentistry to keep our teeth clean, and any other little mundane fact you might want to throw in there."

"That's very charming," I snapped back. "But I never went to college and that's not why I came. Have you ever seen these two women?" I asked, pulling the pictures of Maudette and Dawn out of my purse.

I don't know if he even glanced down but his beautiful face was smirking while his eyes cooled several degrees. "I tasted the one with the dark hair –"

"Dawn," I said.

He ignored me. "-She enjoyed pain. It is not a personal preference of mine but she left satisfied." Ugh. I didn't even know what to think of that. He leaned back in to my space. "I can be very accommodating Miss Stackhouse. Why don't you join me in my office to finish your questions so I can show you exactly how much."

I won't lie, he was attractive enough, his voice stirring enough, and even his head silent enough that I considered the possibility for a moment. But all the other moments made it pretty clear that would be a bad idea.

"I'd rather stay out here if you don't mind," I said softly.

He took a step closer and I realized he had me pinned against the bar. I actually made myself search beyond the silence of his mind and realized how envious the rest of the humans in the building were of me in this moment… all except-

"Maybe I do mind," he purred over me.

"Maybe I don't mind if you mind," I said, my head distracted. His face lit up for a moment and his smile went from predatory to genuinely amused. He laughed, and it rumbled around us. He was so transformed that for a second I thought it might not be so bad going to a private room to talk with him, maybe I could make him laugh again and act a little more… human. But there was something more important.

"Excuse me, Mr…"

"Eric," he said, his smile only cooling a fraction. "Northman."

"Mr. Northman," I whispered. "You've got an undercover cop over at that table. He's a little concerned about your proximity to me but he's more concerned about the two girls waiting at the door. Rightly so, they've got fake i.d.s."

His eyes narrowed and focused tightly on my face. There wasn't any pressure in my head, which I was starting to guess meant he was trying to mess with my thoughts, but I could tell he was focusing on me more than I was comfortable with.

"Mr. Northman?" I prompted.

"Eric," He corrected. He stepped back. "Pamela will ensure the girls are not admitted."

I glanced over and the back of Pamela's head nodded once.

"Oh. Okay. I think I better go now," I said. He had moved away but somehow I still didn't have much room to scoot around him.

"You parked in the back?" he asked, which was oddly mundane. I nodded. He slipped his arm under mine and gripped my wrist gently. "Allow me to escort you out the back."

I had to follow him - even if there wasn't much pressure I could tell there was no way I was wiggling my way out of his grasp. He chuckled at my resistant steps and tense arm as we stepped into a dim hallway and the noise of the bar dulled.

"Rest assured Miss Stackhouse you will make it into your car safely." He leaned down, his nose brushing against my hair. He smelled like dust and cedar, reminding me of an old library I had visited in Shreveport once as a kid. "I am a very good bodyguard."

"I think you're the most dangerous thing in this place," I said, wincing and chastising my tongue that spoke faster than I could discipline it.

He only laughed and it warmed the air around us. "Very observant. Now tell me, the women in your pictures. They are dead?"

"Yes." I bit my lip and then continued. "They were strangled. They had bite marks and… the police think my brother killed them."

"Did he?"

"No."

He opened a door at the end of the hallway, the red exit light making him look sunburned, but I suppose I looked worse. We stepped out to an empty parking lot, and I could see my little yellow car at the end of the row under a street lamp.

"I assume you are certain of this for the same reason you knew about the policeman and the underage girls?" His voice was light but I tensed, realizing how badly I had given myself away.

"Yes."

"Where is your car?" I pointed and he grimaced before walking us slowly over. "It was not a vampire that killed the woman. They would have been drained and no one would ever have found them. You need a new car."

I sagged and ignored his dig about my car. "I sort of knew that."

"I am glad to know that you were not planning on accusing a vampire of murder to his face," he said with a wry smile. "That would have made you very stupid, crowded bar or not."

"Did Dawn say anything to you? Any clue?" I asked.

He grinned as we stopped at my car, and it was boyish and hungry at the same time. "We did very little talking." I blushed and his pupils dilated. "I will see you again soon, Miss Stackhouse."

"I don't think I'll be back Mr. Northman," I said and reached out my hand. "But it was nice meeting you. Thank you for talking to me." And not biting me, I added mentally.

He stared at my hand just long enough that I thought maybe I should give up, but then he snatched it up from the air so fast I didn't even see the movement. He raised my wrist to his face and breathed in deeply, closing his eyes and purring as he sighed out. His lips brushed my sensitive skin and I shivered as my body temperature rose. He released my hand and it fell between us, heavier than before.

"What did that tell you?" I asked.

"That you are very rare," he said, a gentle growl at the back of his throat. "In many ways."

I pasted on a grin and grabbed onto my door handle to keep me upright. "Back home we just call it 'crazy.' Goodnight Mr. Northman."

Maybe it was silly of me to turn my back on a vampire, but he didn't do anything. Just whispered, "Goodnight Sookie."

When I lowered myself into my seat and closed the door behind me, he was gone from the parking lot.


	2. Chapter 2

**AN: Before we begin I would just like to give a huge thank you to all of your for the remarkable response to the first chapter. It was so lovely and unexpected I decided to post this chapter early. So go you, and enjoy.**

Despite Eric's words, I sort of expected that to be the end of our interaction. Most of me was hoping it would be, but a small traitorous part was wishing he would somehow keep his word. However that small traitorous part wasn't exactly pleased to see a red corvette in my driveway a few days later with the license plate 'BITE ME.' It was even less pleased to find Eric Northman sitting on the loveseat across from my Gran in her armchair after my work shift.

"What are you doing here?" I asked, letting my voice be as sharp as it liked.

He grinned and studied my bare legs with pleasure but no comment.

"Sookie! Is that how we treat guests in this house?" Gran snapped at me. Despite the situation I didn't even think of checking her for bite marks. I suppose a part of me already trusted Eric with that much.

All the edge from Fangtasia was missing from his smile. He was dressed in beautifully fitted blue jeans and a simple black t-shirt. There was an innocuous glass of sweet tea sweating on a coaster on the coffee table in front of him.

"What do you say, Sookie?"

I chewed the inside of my mouth for a moment. I wanted to say that Eric was a vampire, a dangerous one, and my Gran was an innocent old lady. But I was pretty sure she'd hide me for that and anyways this scene was practically a commercial for vampire rights activists.

"I apologize," I ground out to Eric.

He beamed. "It's perfectly fine. Your granddaughter is right to be concerned, Adele. I came to tell you that I looked into the matter regarding the victims," Eric said to me. "I was right, they were not killed by my kind. However I did discover that there are some… vampires who are unreformed in your area. I thought it best to warn you of this. Do not open your door to unfamiliar faces. Certainly do not invite them in."

I raised one eyebrow and glanced at Gran who sniffed and ignored me. Eric smirked.

"It would be better for you both," Eric continued, "if that were a general rule. Do not invite any vampires in excluding myself and Pam."

"Longshadow?" I asked, since he worked for him too.

Eric's face darkened and he looked like the vampire I had met in the bar again. "Definitely not Longshadow."

I shrugged, admittedly relieved. I glanced at the clock over the mantle, it was after ten, which was late for Gran to be out of bed even though she was usually up later reading. She was eyeing Eric with an unusual, calculating expression and I was so curious I almost dipped into her thoughts. Eric was busy sneaking his smutty little glances at my legs that by the time he turned back to her, Gran was all smiles again.

"Adele, I was wondering if you might allow me to speak with Sookie." Eric's face was polite, maybe even warm although I had a hard time fathoming that. "She could show me your grounds."

"Of course," Gran said with an easy wave of her hand as she gave me a warning glace to remind me not to complain. I wasn't going to. "It's time for me to get into bed before my old bones give out on me anyways." Eric rose and gallantly helped my Gran out of her chair. "Be the polite young woman I raised you to be," Gran said under her breath as she pressed a kiss against my cheek. I wondered what she would say if I told her that Eric had propositioned me the night we met.

"Yes, Gran. I'll come say goodnight when I come back in."

"Take your time," she said brightly and I waited till she was out of the room to roll my eyes. "She thinks your courting me now."

"Maybe I am," Eric said with a wicked gleam and hungry smile.

"I'll show you around the cemetery," I said heading to the door. "And you can tell me which of the graves you're older than."

It was definitely not the sort of graciousness my Gran was hoping for, but Eric only laughed. "That will be easy. All of them."

I stopped on the step and looked at him to see if he was joking. He was smiling and I didn't know what to think.

"What did you talk about with my gran?"

"History," he answered immediately. "I'm afraid I failed the most important test. I was in Europe during the Civil War, but I told her I would do my best to find someone who might better fit the criteria." My eyes widened and he added, "A safe option."

I shook my head and jogged down the stairs. "I wasn't worried I just… Why would you bother?"

"Adele is an exceptional human," Eric said easily, keeping up with my pace as I speed walked away from the house. "I believe she knew I was a vampire as soon as she opened the door but she invited me in to speak to her even before I asked."

"Can you make people do what you want them to?" I asked off the suspicion I had from the night at the bar. I stopped to meet his eyes.

"Most people."

"Not me?"

"No."

"And not Gran?"

"I don't know," he admitted, glancing back at the house with a frown. "I didn't try."

I sighed. "Thank you. Who else besides me does it not work on?"

"It is called glamouring, and… you are the first."

"Oh." He was studying me and I thought that I should wait for him to ask, but I said it anyways. "I'm a telepath. I can read minds."

"Ah," he said with a satisfied smile. "I thought it might be something of that sort. I had a psychic once. You smell sweeter."

I blushed.

"Sookie," he said, his smile fading. "This is very important. Can you read vampire minds?"

"No," I said. "You're silent. You're the only silent minds I've ever met. It's… you have no idea how peaceful it is."

His eyebrows raised. "Peaceful is not a word commonly associated with vampires."

Now I laughed. "Yeah I bet. I mean, ya'll terrify me, which is probably good otherwise I'd just be followin' you around for some quiet."

"How does it work?" he asked, and I got the feeling that this was more like research for him than polite conversation.

"When I was little I used to respond to questions that were never asked out loud. Some people think in pictures, some in words, most in both. Some are harder, fuzzier than others. My boss, Sam, he's hard to read which is good cause I usually have to quit after I hear a boss thinking nasty thoughts about me." It was so easy to let it out, tell him the details that I hadn't explained to anyone else, not even Gran although she knew the gist of it. "If they touch me, then I can't not hear them."

"And when I touch you?" Eric set his cold hand on my arm as we resumed walking and I closed my eyes.

"Silence." I sighed and opened my eyes again. "Even when I'm not around people I can still feel a buzz, like their thoughts are just far away but still there. When you touch me it's all gone."

I caught a flicker of hunger in his gaze, which made my stomach twist, before his wicked grin returned. "You could come work for me. You would never hear the nasty thoughts I think of you."

I laughed again and blushed, turning away slightly to open the gate to the cemetery. "Maybe not but you'd just say them out loud, I think. Anyways, your customers have the most uncomfortable thoughts I've found. They wrap themselves around me, they're hard to get out of."

"Then you would just have to work close to me. On my lap, I think, would be best."

"That doesn't really sound like work, now does it?"

"Most women would be happy to be paid for that."

I stiffened. "I guess I'm just not most women."

Eric drew his hand back. "Of course. I apologize." My eyebrows jumped up as Eric looked back at the house. "Adele said she raised you. I should've realized that her influence would be more positive than most."

I was stunned. "You respect her?"

"I do."

"You just met her."

"Is that uncommon in her case?"

I opened and closed my mouth for a moment. "No. No, it isn't really. Is it uncommon for vampires to respect humans?"

Eric grinned. "Yes. Definitely. Your brother, do you think he would elicit a similar response?"

I snorted. "Lord, no. Jason is about as normal human as it gets."

"Very well. I feel better if it is only two. Are there any other Stackhouses?"

I paled and studied a grave as I tried to keep myself from trembling. "Nope just us three." I had other relatives, they just weren't named Stackhouse.

Eric was silent and I could feel his gaze on my face. I waited, if he didn't change the subject in a moment then I would.

"I have something I would like you to consider," he said finally and his voice had cooled and evened from its previous humor. "You have a remarkable talent, and I am certain that sooner or later, another vampire will become aware of the fact. I do not mean to scare you, but it is not a general habit of vampires to ask before taking. Many would choose to isolate you or kidnap you and simply force you to use your telepathy for their gain. For your own sake, as well as for your grandmother's - and admittedly mine - I would hope to prevent that. I would like you to sign a formal contract as the official telepath of Area Five of which I am the sheriff. It would not be the best protection I have to offer, but I believe it would be that which is most preferable to you. It would mean I had the right to protect you from other interested parties. At least long enough for other arrangements to be made."

My eyes felt so wide I thought they might fall out. "What? Area Five of what? What other arrangements? What would I be doing?"

Eric explained how the divisions of territories worked fairly quickly, fast enough to make my head spin. "As for your duties, I would simply ask you to read the minds of any human employees that might be necessary. If you would ever be willing to come to Fangtasia on a free evening and prevent any situations like the one you did previously you would be paid generously on an hourly basis. I may ask you for more specific help on a need to need basis. I doubt you would readily agree to the other arrangements and therefore I am not interested in pursuing them at present."

Which wasn't him saying that he wouldn't ever pursue them. I took several breaths. "I don't know very much about vampires but I get the feeling you are being… a lot more fair than you usually would."

"Probably more than is wise," he said, his mouth tense.

"Make a contract and I'll take a look at it. I already have a job and I don't want to wear myself out working nights all the time so I want some kind of fair limit on how much work I'll be expected to do for you within a week or a month, okay?"

Eric's smile was faint, but impressed. "I will call when it's ready."

I nodded. "Okay. Was that all you needed?"

"There is something else," Eric said frowning and looking past the cemetery towards the old Compton house, where that dead vampire should have been staying now. "I was not aware of Bill Compton coming to the area. He should have checked in with me but it was your grandmother who told me of his demise. I am, however, familiar with his reputation as an employee of the Queen of Louisiana. He… procures for her. Usually interesting flavors of blood but sometimes… talent. Sookie, I believe it's possible that he was sent here looking for someone. Vampires are not sentimental, the old family home is too convenient. The fact that the queen has not contacted me looking for her employee after him being missing for several weeks tells me she does not want me aware of her goal. It is likely she will send someone else to procure for her. Be on your guard, especially for any unfamiliar vampires."

"You think she's looking for me."

"Unless you know of any other exceptional humans who smell like sunshine and sugar and who can read minds, or have some other unusual talent, yes, I think so."

"How would she have heard about me?"

"I don't know. I'll be looking into it."

Like he had already started looking into Maudette and Dawn's murders. I wondered if that was a usual thing, a vampire looking into a human's problems. I seriously doubted it.

"Why not procure me for her, yourself?"

Eric smiled grimly. "I would have, if she had asked. Lucky for us both, she did not. I would rather keep you for myself."

Well.

"I have given you a great deal to think about," Eric said, which was putting it lightly. "I have one more favor to ask."

Despite the silence of his mind, my head felt busy and overworked. I sighed. "Okay."

"I would like to return and visit with your grandmother if you don't object. I enjoy discussing the quirks and twists of history with her. It would also allow me to be sure that there are no unwanted visitors."

"Are you asking permission to court my gran?" I asked, teasing. Eric laughed. "I think Gran would tell you it's not up to me who she spends time with, but yes, that's alright. And I appreciate you asking."

Eric nodded. "Now let me walk you back home."

It was sort of a bossy way of being nice, but I figured that if he was vampire Sheriff he was probably used to giving orders that were obeyed. He set his hand on the small of my back and we walked quietly through the cemetery back to the house.

"I forgot to mention," Eric said and I took a deep breath expecting another mental whammie. "You look delectable in those shorts. It is taking my very best resistance not lick every bare inch of skin you have presented. You are welcome to wear those when you come to visit Fangtasia."

My hand reached out and smacked his stomach without me thinking but he just grinned. "Gran would give you a good hiding if she heard you talk to me like that."

"And what will you do Sookie?"

What would I do? "Ask you to mind your manners."

"Very well. For now. But allow me to be clear, I can smell on you that you are untouched and unspoiled by the human tendency to medicate and drug the blood. That is something that I have not experienced in many years, and not at all since vampires have made themselves known to the public. Your body makes me hungry in many ways. I would like to introduce you to every pleasure I have known in my thousand years. I would like to taste every part of you, including your blood, and I would savor you as I have never done another. Your mind, your body, your blood, would not be wasted on me, Sookie Stackhouse. All you need to do is say that you want the same."

My body was trembling. I was hot everywhere, even the cool spot where his hand rested. I was aroused beyond anything I had ever known and there was a very large part of me that wanted to leap into his arms and allow him to do all the beautiful things he was referring to. If any human man had said those things to me I would've kicked them where it really hurt and then kept running. But I knew, perhaps instinctually, that a compliment on my blood coming from a vampire with a thousand year sampling history was a pretty big deal, if not the sort of thing a girl dreamt of hearing.

When I spoke my head had managed to sift through all of that heat and find something important.

"And my heart? Would that be wasted on you?"

Eric stopped and I stepped away and turned to face him. He looked like I had just handed him a math puzzle that didn't have a real answer.

"I'm not sure that I could separate the physical from the emotional, Eric, and I know that I couldn't work for you if you left me hurting."

He was quiet for a long time, I wondered if I'd started speaking in gibberish, or I'd just imagined all the sexy things he had said and now he was totally confused about the direction the conversation had taken. Finally he spoke. "I see. You will tell me if you change your mind."

The disappointment was not unexpected but it was bitter all the same. "Sure." I nodded and looked around. We were only a few feet away from his car. "I'm going inside. You'll let me know when the contract is ready to look at?"

He looked disoriented and I felt it. "Yes," he said. "It will be soon."

I kept nodding and headed to the house, feeling surprisingly weary.

"Goodnight Sookie," he said from behind me.

"Goodnight Eric," I murmured from the steps, certain he could hear me.

I found a physical release under my sheets that night, but it somehow didn't satisfy the longing Eric's words had left me with.

**AN: If anyone is a big fan of the slowburn between a couple, well I'm sorry but that's not this story. I plan on trucking through this plot and through their relationship. Sookie and Eric are admittedly out of character but if I felt like doing an exact replica of Harris then... well, I wouldn't have bothered. Hope that doesn't turn anyone off too much. I promise not to let Sookie be a doormat and Eric won't be human/a cuddly kitten. Again, I own nothing. Review and let me know what you thought, or what you had for breakfast. Anything is good!**


	3. Chapter 3

**AN: For any timeline sticklers, I apologize but things are going a bit out of order in this. Mostly because I feel like it, but also because Bill's dead so who cares?**

Eric usually came by right after sunset, while I was working the dinner shift and occasionally I would see him leaving as I got home. We always said hello, and he usually stared at me like he was still waiting for me to strip off all my clothes and spread myself over the hood of his car in invitation. Sometimes I thought about that. One night he left behind the contract, and it was more generous than I expected when he said the word itself. I only had to work forty hours in one month - ten hours a week, unless I agreed to an exception - and even if I only worked half of that I was making more than I did all month full time at Merlotte's. I wanted to say it was too much but Gran convinced me that if Eric was sure that I was worth it then I should accept. He picked up the contract the next night while I was at work. I didn't even get to thank him.

Gran said that they talked about a different era in history every night. He even met her at a vamp friendly coffee shop one evening with another vampire who had been a carpetbagger in New Orleans after the Civil War. She didn't stop talking about that for days afterwards. I wanted to send him flowers or a card or something, but I didn't know what would be best. Even Gran admitted that it frustrated her that all she could offer was synthetic blood, especially after Eric complimented her on the scent of one of her pies one evening. I'm glad they got to know each other, I think if they hadn't I might not have trusted Eric when I needed to, which was soon.

A few weeks after Eric met Gran, the phone rang in our farmhouse shortly after sunset.

"Sookie, it's Eric for ya'," Gran said.

I dried my hands from the sink water where I was washing our dinner dishes. "Hey, Eric."

"Sookie," he purred over the phone. "Are you available to work at Fangtasia this evening? I have a situation that could use your expertise."

I wondered if Eric knew he could make a business proposition sound like a sexual one. He probably did know, and enjoyed doing so.

"Sure. What time?"

"Sooner would be better. We will remain closed for the evening."

I definitely wasn't dressed for work, much less work that involved Eric seeing me but I'd had a shower and sun tan earlier. "I'll be by in an hour so?"

"I look forward to it."

It sounded like he looked forward to a lot more than just me coming by to read minds. I knew that I shouldn't have, that it was like tempting a… well like tempting a vampire, but I went ahead and put another nice sundress, this one a little tighter and a little shorter, and a dark blue shade that reminded me of Eric's voice, oddly enough –rich and cool. I put my hair up cause it was hot out, but also because it made my neck look long and since I didn't really have much jewelry that wasn't real silver I left my arms and neck bare. I put my red heels on again and Gran shook her head as I came down the stairs.

"Poor Eric," she said.

"He's a vampire, Gran," I laughed.

"Any one could see you've got him panting for it, and now you're going there to tease him with it."

I blushed. "It's complicated." I didn't want to explain to my gran that the young man she'd set her sights on, at least for me, was about as emotionally unavailable as they get.

"You know, Sookie," Gran said gently. "You're young. It'd be okay for you to have a little fun where you can."

If I'd been sipping water I'd have choked. As it was I felt a little like I was drowning. Had Gran just told me to go get some if it was there? I didn't know what to think. She stepped forward and kissed my cheek. "Pop in to say goodnight when you get back, or call from Eric's office if it'll be too late." Gran thought the club's name was tacky so she never mentioned it, just called it Eric's business or his office.

I have to admit, it wasn't until I walked into Fangtasia that it really hit me what I had signed up for. Eric, Pam, and Longshadow were waiting in interrupted stillness. Their eyes devoured me with undisguised hunger as I took in the diminutive man sitting between them, sweating bullets of terror.

"Eric, may I speak with you in private for a moment?"

Pamela and Longshadow both smirked. Dressed the way I was they probably thought I'd come for sex, but Eric had the decency or at least the experience to raise one eyebrow in surprise. That didn't stop him from using his usual rough purring tone when he said, "Gladly."

He escorted me down the hallway to his office where he only allowed me to step in before surrounding me against the door, his arms trapping me at my shoulders. He breathed in deeply and groaned.

"When you smell like that, you are like bait. Bait I would take even if I knew it was part of a trap." His eyes opened and the blue was electric. "Has anyone ever warned you about walking into a vampire den doused in the scent of the sun?"

"You have now," I said sharply. "Can they hear us?"

Eric grinned slowly, his body leaning into mine until he was barely an inch away. "Not if we whisper," he breathed against my ear.

"Get. It. Together." I hissed right back into his own ear and he froze. "I'm not coming on to you. Why did you ask me here tonight?"

Eric drew back and studied my face. "There is money missing. Tens of thousands. I have questioned my vampire staff. I need you to study the humans."

"And what will you do if it was a human? Because, Eric, that poor guy out there is wondering if he should have said goodbye to his wife before coming here tonight."

Eric stepped away and ran a hand through his hair. I'd come to discover that his whole body language tightened every time I reminded him of business. Even the air around us was affected, dropping several degrees. "I see," he said. Vampires were always saying that to me, like most of the time things I said didn't translate well the first go around.

"I can't help you if it ends with people dying," I said. "I should have thought of that but when you come to the house you're so…"

"Human?" The word was heavy and dull like lead.

I grimaced and corrected him. "Kind."

He froze, his back to me and I took a few steps away from the door and lowered my voice. "You're good to Gran and that counts more than anything else might in my book. Maybe it's my fault for not remembering that you _are_ a vampire."

Eric's swiveled, his eyes narrowed at me. "You have signed the contract."

I kept my face expressionless. He had warned me that vampires took by force and that warning had eased me enough to forget that he was referring to himself in that. "You're right, I did. And I will read them for you but I… I won't live well with myself. I will look for a way out of the contract." There probably wasn't one, I knew. Eric didn't say it, though.

His shoulders lowered and he moved close to me again, some of the commanding tension disappearing from him. "They will need to be punished," he said.

"The police?" I whispered. "Can you glamour them to confess?"

Eric studied my face. "Not every job I require you for will be so easy for me to excuse this way. If I appear weak to other vampires, I will become a target. I have people to protect, including yourself. Think on this."

"I will," I murmured. "Thank you."

He looked uneasy and I wondered if I was already making him risk too much by allowing me this concession. The idea of that touched me, in an odd way.

"Sit," Eric gestured to a long black couch to my right. "I think it would be best if we conducted these interviews in private."

An hour or so later and I had a splitting headache. I had never really _tried_ to read people, to find a way to direct the ramble of their thoughts to fit a line of questioning. And it wasn't made any easier by Eric looming at my side terrifying his employees. It'd taken me at least fifteen minutes to calm Bruce, the sweating accountant, enough for me to realize he was innocent. Even Ginger, a vapid blonde waitress who was more bite marks than she was girl, was equal parts fear and preening.

"Ginger," I snapped at her, sick of seeing an ongoing fantasy reel between her and Eric. "Who stole the money from the bar?"

It was the most direct way of sorting through the mushy brains of Eric's over glamoured employees. Up until this point it led directly to innocent terror, or innocent confusion. But not Ginger.

She began to scream and flail, even when Eric moved to hold her still. She cussed and cursed at me and the whole time I dug ruthlessly through her suddenly spinning thoughts, wishing I could stick my fingers in my ears and still look like a professional.

"She knows who it was but she can't say," I told Eric over the din of her shouting. Pam and Longshadow walked in with the last of the waitresses, and grimaced at the hysterical Ginger. "It's a vampire. They've bitten her. They work…"

Over my shoulder I heard the vampire's name from the last waitress and I jumped in my seat and looked directly at him.

"It's Long-"

Longshadow threw the girl against the wall and leapt at me in one move. My head hit the wall behind me and I screeched as knives tore into my shoulder and Longshadow's black curtain of hair covered my sight. He went stiff against me, and sagged and then I felt gushing blood drip down into my cleavage and into my lap. I hoped it wasn't mine.

Longshadow flopped away, revealing Eric with a vamp gunk coated stake pulled fresh out of his former bartender's back. His face was furious as it studied my now blood covered chest. Pam's fangs had dropped and she was taking deep gulps of breath, groaning slightly, but luckily she turned her attention to the other waitress, Belinda. Despite her vampire boyfriend just being staked, Ginger looked both horrified and ready to accommodate Eric.

He took my arms in both his hands and hauled me up from the couch.

"Eric." I wasn't sure what to say next. Don't kill me? Don't bite me? Don't look at me like Pam is looking at your waitresses? He wasn't. He looked murderous.

"Ginger, follow us. Come," he said to me, but he was pulling me out of his office and down the hall so the order seemed moot. He dragged me into a locker room and twisted a shower handle so hard I was surprised it didn't break off. He pushed me into the spray. "Wash the blood off your breasts. I will take care of your shoulder."

I watched from under the steaming water, in a state of frozen shock as Eric's fangs dropped and he took a quick efficient bite from Ginger's wrist. She pouted as he licked once and pulled away. "Leave now," he said to her, and she stomped away like a child. "When we feed, our saliva begins to produce a coagulant. It will heal your shoulder."

Just before I could open my mouth to ask if Eric was about to spit on me, he wrapped his arm around my back and pulled me to his chest, lowering his face to my shoulder where he proceeded to lick me. He hummed in approval and I could feel another part of him, lower, agreeing with his pleasure. My eyes teared up and I began to shake. I was standing in a hot shower, trying to rinse away the blood of one vampire, while another licked my wounded shoulder sensually, but also somehow chaste. Eric felt my trembles and his hands ran up and down my back to soothe, I think. Despite what his mouth was doing, I couldn't really convince myself that his intentions were _entirely_ about taking advantage of me. Slowly, by infintesimal amounts, I began to relax. I realized that Eric's anger had been directed at Longshadow, not me, and his tense commands had been born out of control, not chastisement.

Just as I was starting to feel affected by the long strokes of his tongue against my skin Eric stood up straight, his arms still holding me against him and his mouth shockingly red. He looked relaxed, sated, but his eyes ran over my face like a doctor taking a diagnostic test.

"I would be remiss if I did not mention that yours is the sweetest blood I have had in centuries," Eric murmured. "I will never forgive Longshadow for tasting it first."

"You staked him."

"He would have drained you."

"I'm just a human, Eric.

"He stole from me," Eric justified but I could tell that he was giving me a list of reasons, probably ones he'd come up with while licking me. He was as surprised in the moment as I was that he had staked another vampire for me. "I am within my rights to respond to his theft as well as his threat to you. You did not stipulate that I must also turn over the vampires to the police."

I shook my head and as I looked down I could see a bit of black hair draped over my shoulder and bit of something else stuck between my breasts. The arousal of the moment went out like a light and I nearly heaved.

"I'm going to be sick," I warned Eric, and he stepped away to my back. I felt my dress loosen, and the vampire gunk slipped down my stomach and dropped to the floor along with my vomit. Had Eric undone my zipper? I felt my back. He had.

"Undress. Wash off. I'll leave something for you to wear by the door." His voice was so gentle I wanted to cry. Part of me wanted to ask him to stay too, I wasn't sure I could hold myself up while I was alone. But when I looked over my shoulder he was gone. It had probably been a long time since he had to watch a human barf, I couldn't blame him for running.

I stripped down to my surprisingly, and thankfully, clean panties. I'd kicked off my heels in Eric's office while we'd been interviewing the staff. I had to keep stepping out of the way of falling gore from my hair and arms. I left the hot water after a long time. Probably a longer time than was necessary. When I finally yanked the faucet off - Eric's twist to 'on' had almost become permanent – and turned the corner I was only just getting over the shock enough to wonder if Eric would take the opportunity to catch me naked. But I was alone in the room aside from a pair of men's black boxer briefs, and a black t-shirt long enough to cover the embarrassment of the baggy underwear. It was probably asking for trouble, but I went ahead and left the men's underwear off.

Eric was waiting just outside the door, frozen with his arms and legs crossed as he leaned against the wall. He looked up as I stepped closer and I got the feeling he'd been standing there for almost as long as I had been alone in the shower.

"Are you alright?" It wasn't urgent, like it might have been from a human, and I was sure Eric could tell I was alright now, but it still sounded sincere.

"Yes. I think so. I haven't looked at my shoulder."

That gave Eric the excuse to look at my bare skin and he did so until the pause was uncomfortable. I cleared my throat. He smiled, lecherous but mild. He straightened up and stepped up close to me, gently pushing the already wide collar to inspect the skin where my neck met my shoulder and Longshadow's bite stung. I thought he was about to lick me again until I felt his cool lips resting softly on a bit of non-mangled skin. I was holding my breath.

"It will heal," he whispered and I shivered. His face was suddenly in front of me, soft and cold, hard and hungry, all of that at once and nothing in between.

"I should call Gran and tell her I'll be late," I was suddenly saying. I could've kicked myself.

He pulled away and looked to the floor. "I notified Adele. Told her you would be all right. She is… very unhappy with me."

"It wasn't your fault. I'll explain to her."

Eric's icy blues were on me. "Do you believe that?"

"You didn't think it was a vampire cheating you," I reminded him. "I don't believe very many things surprise you, but I'm sure this did." Had I moved myself forward? I was very close to Eric, his face hanging over mine, just a fraction less than inscrutable. I reached up and cupped Eric's face with my palm, his pupils dilating with my touch. His skin was smooth and cool, felt soothing against my hot hand. "Would it surprise you if I said I had changed my mind about your offer?"

I think I'd been reconsidering Eric's proposal of a thousand year's worth of pleasure over and over ever since he first made it. Gran's words from earlier had a little effect, but the understanding of Eric's protection from Longshadow, and from himself while in the shower, had tipped the scales in his favor.

"Sookie," he breathed, his cheek lowering to mine. "You're in shock." He pulled away. "I will drive you home."

My chest constricted. Had I just been rejected? I had felt plenty, heard plenty through thoughts, but I had never actually had anyone do it out loud. I followed Eric after a beat, my bare feet slapping staccato against the floor, my back rigid. I expected him to put me in the corvette but instead he led me to my little yellow junker. I wondered if he would fit.

"How will you get home?" I asked as Eric opened the passenger door for me.

"I will fly."

I fell into the seat with his words and he shut the door behind me. He drove me home in silence and I felt bad for making things awkward. I hoped he would still visit Gran.

He pulled over the side of the road before our driveway. I couldn't see the house from here. Was he going to make me walk?

"Sookie," he said. I fiddled with my hands and studied my chipped polish. "There is much you don't understand."

It was the worst thing he could say in the face of my insecurities. "Look. You don't need to let me down easy. I didn't realize the offer was off the table."

I was out of my seat, in the air, and over Eric's lap with a breathless suddenness. How he managed to maneuver me without banging me against the ceiling or the gearshift or even the steering wheel, I have no idea.

"The offer is most definitely on the table, Sookie Stackhouse," Eric growled, his hands tense against my back.

"Oh."

"You were attacked," he said tersely. "Forgive me for being uncertain of your motivations."

My chest was brushing against his and my nipples were pebbling. "Would it help to know I was changing my mind before Longshadow fell to pieces over me?"

Eric's face brushed against mine. "It would." His lips skimmed mine. "But there are things you should know."

"Like?" I asked, deliberately brushing my mouth over his again. I could taste him breathing me in.

"If we are lovers, you will be _mine_."

I froze and met his gaze. The word sounded heavy with weight. "What does that mean?"

"To other vampires you would be my possession. To damage or steal you would be punishable by death. They could not touch you without my permission. You would have no other. Vampire _or_ man."

Red flags were going up like crazy. "Whose would you be?"

Eric looked genuinely surprised by that question. I waited patiently, my legs over both of his, my palms against his cool chest.

"My maker's," he said stiffly. "I will be loyal to Pam, and to an extent the Queen."

Well. I was expecting that, I suppose. "And you will have others? Their blood, their bodies?"

Eric was thoughtful again, but not as surprised. "You would prefer monogamy?"

"I would. You can cut me loose when you like, but unless it's life or death I don't want you straying."

"Blood from any other source would taste bitter after yours," Eric said matter-of-factly. "If you are willing to feed me, I would be a fool to insult you in that way. I need very little at my age. And if you think I will be unsatisfied then yes, I will cut you loose as you say if that occurs."

It sounded clinical in that way.

"I will need to take things slowly. And I will need honesty," I said.

Eric's gaze was turning hungry but he stayed on task. "I will tell you, as I have, as much as you may know safely."

"Then I'll think about it," I said, shifting to move away.

Eric's hand's clamped down. "Allow me to give you something to think about."

His mouth returned to mine and displayed all the talent, skill, and expertise a thousand years could afford someone in the art of kissing. I became liquid, felt every bit as sweet as vampires claimed I smelled. I felt like hot candy in a vat, in Eric's hands. His fingers slid into my hair at the back of my neck, and his free hand rolled my hips over his, creating sweet pangs below my stomach. Then his fingertips were under the shirt he leant me and inside my panties, massaging and circling and dipping to make me tremble. I had to pull away to gasp and Eric's mouth slid down my throat to suck just below the corner of my jaw. There was a pretty big part of me thinking about the fact that we were in a car; that this was a big step for me and it'd been on my mind for all of a handful of hours. That big part of me must have had a very quiet voice, totally drowned out by the sounds my whimpers and Eric's long purr.

His fangs brushed over the skin of my neck but never bit and it was on their third, careful pass over my skin that I shuddered and fell apart in his hold. I wondered if I came too quickly or too much or if I should have cried out his name like I wanted to.

"You can… you can bite," I whispered, still shaking in the after shocks every so often.

He chuckled and kissed my neck. "Not tonight. You should think first." I sighed and he nipped me, making me jump. He laughed again. "You must be certain. When I finally have you, Sookie, I will not give you up lightly."

**AN: Get it, get it, Sookie Stackhouse. Cause let's be honest, we would. I own nothing! (I own less than nothing, actually, cause I went to art school and paid for that with loooaaans.) Leave a review! It pumps me up and also, I am flexible on details and could be swayed. Again, thank you to everyone who reviewed. It was lovely to know you're enjoying this so far. I hope we stay on that track!**


	4. Chapter 4

I thought maybe I would have time to think about the possibilities of Eric and me but actually it was less than twenty-four hours. I was at Merlotte's the next night, admittedly daydreaming, when three unfamiliar vampires walked in. _Now these guys look tacky_, was the first thing I thought. The second thing as the big bald one with the bad tattoo scanned me, or at least my boobs, was that I was glad I was behind the bar and by the phone. I picked it up and dialed home.

"Stackhouse residence."

"Hey Gran, could you call Eric and let him know that we've just got some unfamiliar visitors in the bar tonight."

"Vampires?"

"Yep."

"Are you alright, Sookie?"

"Just fine."

"I'll call him now.

"Thanks, Gran."

At the end of my brief conversation I was being studied by not just the bald vampire but the female with the greenish glow to her dark skin.

"Look at this little rose just sitting in a pile of filth." She sashayed up to the bar and leaned over to sniff me. "You are exquisite."

_Sookie? Is she kidding me? _Arlene thought with an edge of jealousy. Some people sure could take vanity to a new level.

"I belong to Eric Northman," I said on impulse, remembering what he said about not being able to touch me without his permission. That sounded pretty good considering how she was looking at me.

Sam hissed at my side and gripped a pint glass tight enough that I thought it might break in his hand. Huh. My announcement made his mind green with jealousy and red with anger.

Over the vampire's shoulder I could see the last of the trio, greasy haired and with a sleazy opening in his shiny shirt, narrow his eyes and a feral grin grew over his face.

"You heard her, Diane," he said. "She _belongs _to the Sheriff."

All three of them laughed and I wondered why Eric had never mentioned that some vampires don't really seem to care about the rules. It would have been good to know before announcing myself as claimed.

"Unless you're planning on purchasing a drink and taking a seat, we don't really welcome loiterin' in here," Sam growled at the vampires across the bar.

The bar was silent but I caught a few mental snickers. There was plenty of loitering that took place in Merlotte's, just not by vampires. The last vampire to spend more than a few minutes here had turned to ash in the parking lot. I thought maybe Sam should put that as a warning on the door.

"How much for her?" Diane purred while staring into my cleavage.

"You're not my type," I said.

"You smell like mine," she answered.

"I am Eric's." So I guess I had made my decision then.

"I am Eric's," she mimicked in a rude interpretation of my voice. "He sure will be disappointed not to see you again."

"I doubt that will be a problem," I said. "He knows you're here. He's been called."

She hissed and snarled at me but leaned away from the bar.

"You don't play nice," the big bald one said to me in a plodding tone.

"I sure don't." It was true, Gran had probably called Eric by now. I wasn't sure this really meant he'd be coming to check in on me, but it seemed to have an effect on this lot.

"I suppose we will have to entertain ourselves elsewhere," the greasy one sighed with a pout, which definitely did not suit him. I also didn't really believe him. They gave a few more patrons smiles that were somewhere between threatening and inviting, and then they drifted out the door. My brain followed their empty spots. They didn't go far.

"Sookie, I need to see you in my office," Sam announced, but he had me by the arm and he was pulling me along behind him. That was a thing lately, and I didn't like it.

_Shoulda said something. Protect her myself. Smells so damn good. _He was thinking all that and it was starting to really get on my nerves that people were always thinking about how I smelled. I wondered if I should shower a little less or a little more.

Sam tried to pull me close in his office but I scooted to the side and sat down in a chair across from his desk. I wanted this to feel professional even if I was pretty sure it wasn't gonna be.

"Sookie how the hell did you get yourself mixed up with vampires? What are you doing with the Sherrif? He's more dangerous than anyone in the area."

I opened my mouth to tell him to say that to my Gran but then I thought about what it might mean to Eric if it got around that he hung out with a little old lady and discussed history.

"Well," I said, playing dumb instead, "he sure is handsome."

"He'll kill you!" Sam shouted. "What are you thinking? I thought you were smarter than that." In his head he was thinking, _She's dumber than I thought_. It was similar, but not the same.

"I don't think he will, and really Sam, this ain't none of your business."

"Sookie, think about this, think about what happened to Maudette and Dawn."

"That wasn't a vampire, Sam and you know it," I snapped. "If it was it wouldn't be my brother under suspicion for it!"

"Is that what this is about? Are you trying to pin the murders on Northman?"

"What?! Lord, Sam. Now that would be stupid."

"It's all stupid, Sookie! I don't see any which way of this that ain't stupid."

"Sam you are my boss, not my boyfriend. Frankly I don't see how any of this is your business." It wasn't quite fair of me to say that because we were at least friends. And I sort of knew Sam was interested in me, but I'd always been glad he hadn't acted on it. It didn't sit right with me that he was making a fuss about my personal life now of all times.

The phone started ringing but Sam reached forward and pulled my shirt collar to the side, making me hiss and revealing Longshadow's bite.

"Damn it, Sookie! Look at what he did to you."

"That wasn't Eric. It was another vampire and he's dead now. Permanently. Thanks to Eric, who has never tried to bite me."

That stunned Sam good. Seemed like he couldn't quite fathom a vampire killing another vampire over some dumb blonde waitress. Especially one who wasn't feeding and fucking him. I could probably start a club for people who couldn't fathom that. I would join, maybe Pam too. Before he could say anything, Arlene opened the office door.

"Could I get a little help out here, Sam? Sookie, there's a man on the phone for ya."

Sam and I glared at each other for a few moments.

"May I use the office phone alone, Sam?"

He stormed out after Arlene and I picked up the receiver.

"Hello?"

"You need a cell phone."

All of the sudden I was smiling. Eric's words were terse and irritated but it was like I was giddy to hear him anyways. Maybe before I wasn't so sure he would really care if more vampires were after me or not.

"I'll take that into consideration," I said lightly.

"So will I. Are the vampires gone?"

"No. I can _not hear_ them outside the bar somewhere. Didn't catch all their names but the woman was Diane. She didn't seem to care that I said I was yours."

There was a long silent pause. "You said that?" Even Eric couldn't keep the small note of pleasure out of his voice.

"Sure did. I hope you ain't changin' your mind."

He chuckled. "Not yet. I'll keep you updated. When does your shift end?"

"Last call's at two."

"Fangtasia closes later. I may not be able to… Sookie don't walk out of that bar until I or Pam arrive."

"Not a problem. Despite common belief I am not that stupid." I tried to keep the bitterness from my argument with Sam out of my voice but I could almost hear Eric struggle with whether or not to question me on my remark in the silence.

"I will send someone to watch your home and Adele," he said finally.

"Thanks. That would make me feel better."

"It seems we have much to discuss. I will see you tonight, even if I cannot get away before you leave Merlotte's."

"Alright." I thought about saying that I would rather it was him who came here. I didn't really know Pam and I wasn't sure how she felt about me, although from what I got from Eric about vampires I knew that as his child she would do as much to protect me as he would. Anyways I didn't want to seem clingy. "Thank you, Eric. I…" I didn't feel worth the effort. I didn't understand what he saw in me. I wondered if he was doing it more for Gran than for me. "I appreciate it," I said instead.

"Sookie…" Eric paused. Our conversations sure were loaded. "I will see you tonight. We will talk."

"Sounds good," I said, trying to sound bright when I felt strangely maudlin all of a sudden.

It was quiet after that and it took me a moment to realize he'd already hung up.

Pam arrived in a baby pink suit set at Merlotte's shortly before last call. She ordered a Tru Blood that she barely touched and she sat at the bar without talking to anyone. She and Sam side-eyed each other with distaste a whole lot, but aside from that I could feel her eyes on me pretty much the whole time. She didn't speak to me until we were closed and I was walking towards the door with her at my side.

"You are a very efficient waitress," she said. "You hear the customer's needs before they are spoken?"

I looked around, startled by her frankness, but there was no one around to hear her. "Yeah. I guess so."

"You should quit here. Come to work at Fangtasia. We have health care and there is no grease smell."

I laughed as we stepped outside. "Yeah but I think I fit in better here."

"You don't," she said making me stop short. She looked at me with a blank, honest expression. "You would not fit in at Fangtasia, it's true, but I will at least grant you that you are too good for this dump."

There was a lot that wasn't said in that. Mostly that I got the impression she wasn't so sure I was good enough for Eric. Part of me wanted to defend Merlotte's, my people, my town. The other part of me recognized that this was her way of paying a small compliment.

"Well," I said. "I don't know." She shrugged so I changed the subject. "The vampires?"

"Left as I arrived," she answered. "They were waiting by your car. They're gone yes?"

I took a moment to try and reach around me. I couldn't find any other blank spots aside from Pam.

"Seems like it."

"Good." I wasn't sure if she meant it like 'Good job, you're right' or 'Good that they left.' "I will follow you home. Eric has asked that you leave your bedroom window open so he may speak with you tonight." The way she said 'speak' made it clear that she thought he was joking about that and that she assumed I would be feeding or fucking him. The 'finally' was implied in that too.

Pam's pastel blue mini-van followed me all the way home and waited in the drive for me to walk inside the house. Eric had given her very polite instructions. I stepped into Gran's room briefly where she'd fallen asleep with a book in her lap and the light on. I kissed her on the cheek and let her know I was safe before heading to my room and straight into the shower. I couldn't stop thinking about the way everyone was always talking about my scent, or Pam's reference of the bar smelling like grease, and I suppose I was feeling a little self conscious about what Eric would smell on me.

When I got out I wrapped a towel around myself and realized that there was an empty space waiting inside my bedroom. I peeked around the door and discovered a smiling Eric, shirtless and under my covers. My eyes widened and so did his smile.

"I have good timing," he congratulated himself.

"My clothes are out there."

"You don't need them."

I swallowed. "Eric… I don't know if I'm-"

He sat up and my sheets fell back to reveal bare hipbones and the most beautiful curve of a bottom against my mattress. He was naked.

"We won't have sex tonight," he said simply. "There is not enough time."

Considering it was only just after three and I knew the sun definitely wasn't going to be up in the next half hour, this didn't really match what I'd learned about sex from most minds.

His smile grew, "When we have sex, Sookie, it will be a night long event and it will not be within in hearing range of your grandmother. We would wake her with our pleasure." I swallowed again. He patted the bed. "Come out. We will talk and touch."

I took a deep breath and squeezed the towel tighter around me before opening the door and walking out to perch myself delicately on the side of the bed. Eric laughed quietly before vampire speeding me under the covers and against his side. The towel fluttered to the floor at the side of my bed. My resulting squeak of shock was muffled carefully by his mouth, which set itself to the task of distracting me into relaxation. He was very good.

I could feel him laying stiff over my hip as he pulled slowly away from my eager lips. One arm propped him up on his side while the other hand ran less than politely down my side, turning my waist and hips into unexpected erogenous zones.

"That didn't sound like talking to me," I said, my voice lower and more uneven than I expected. I pulled the sheet up to cover our chests.

Eric grinned and tugged the fabric down just an inch. "No, but I guessed that you had never been naked in bed with a man before."

"You guessed right."

"It is important for us to be comfortable with each other. I am comfortable with you, Sookie. Are you comfortable with me?"

I resisted the urge to say that I thought he was probably comfortable with most naked women. "I'm getting there," I admitted.

He leaned down and kissed me long and soft again. I was definitely sitting somewhere between comfortable and pleasantly uncomfortable the longer he did that.

He pulled away again. "I admit I am disappointed."

I paled and retreated and Eric blinked hard. Maybe that was the vampire equivalent of smacking his forehead.

"No," he said quickly, his hands scooping under my back to pull me closer. "You misunderstand. _You_ do not disappoint me, Sookie. You delight me. But I am frustrated that it was the rogue vampires who first heard you declare yourself mine, and not me. As I am frustrated that it was Longshadow who tasted you first, and not me."

Oh. I relaxed, and my breasts brushed his chest, making parts of me hungry for more touching. "Yeah, I wasn't too pleased about any of that either."

Eric's forehead knotted slightly. "I need to ask. I would understand if you said that you were mine to protect yourself tonight. But I need to know if you meant all parts of it. Everything we talked about last night."

I respected him enough to really think it over, and it surprised me to see that he seemed a little nervous or impatient as he waited. "I knew last night that I would agree to be yours, Eric, but I probably would have taken more time to think if they hadn't come in tonight."

"I will be possessive," he warned.

"So will I." This made him grin. "I'm serious. I've never done this before and you've done this I don't know how many times and thinking about that makes me feel… I don't like it."

Eric kissed me deeply and for such a long time that I thought maybe he'd changed his mind about what was happening between us tonight. Frankly, when he kissed me I didn't really care whether or not we were going to stop.

"I have bedded many women, yes," Eric said after pulling away and I winced. "But I have never declared a woman _mine_."

Oh. _Oh._ I was smiling, probably really big, and Eric laughed lightly.

"I'm your first." I giggled and Eric stifled his own laugh against my neck, making me shiver and lift my hips against his. He groaned and I sighed, moving my hands restlessly over his back. Did we have to only touch tonight?

"There is something I would like to do," Eric said against my neck.

"Me too," I moaned, pushing my chest against his.

Something in his chest rumbled deeply and he lifted his head to meet my hungry eyes.

"Not tonight, Sookie, there is not enough time for that tonight. But this will be close. However there are consequences you may not like."

My eyes grew big and I stopped rubbing myself against him. "Tell me."

"I want you to take my blood."

"Take?"

"Drink." He watched me as I grimaced. "If you have my blood, I will know if you are afraid or hurt. Other vampires will smell me in you and know that you are mine. You will be stronger, sharper, more alert. Also, it will heal that scar," he said with a frown at Longshadow's bite.

"But?" I asked, since none of those things sounded like 'consequences.'

"You may feel differently about me, more beholden, more… lustful. You may have dreams of us together. It may affect your judgment towards me."

I bit my lip before speaking. I didn't like the 'beholden' part, or even the idea of it affecting my judgment. "Will it wear off?"

"Eventually."

"Years eventually or months eventually?"

"Months probably," he said. "I have not done this in a very, very long time. The less you take, the sooner it will wear off."

"So if I take some, and I'm not myself, do you promise not to give me more until it's worn off?"

"I will give you my blood if you are injured and need it to heal," Eric said sternly.

"Eric."

He studied my face. "Yes. If it affects you too much I will not give you more unless it is life or death."

It was a similar stipulation to the one I had about him taking other people's blood, so it seemed fair.

"Alright," I said, trying to ignore the fact that I had just agreed to drink someone else's blood.

"It does not bother you that it could affect your decision on whether or not you will have sex with me?" he asked, mildly surprised.

I laughed. "Eric, I already want to have sex with you." He beamed, and it was definitely a little over confident but I let it slide because, well, looking at him he had reason to be. "We'll just have to make sure that we've both got a night off soon."

He laughed. "I look forward to clearing my schedule. One night may have been a conservative estimate. Can you clear a week?"

Since I couldn't really fathom the reality of having sex with Eric at all, let alone for seven consecutive nights, I left that question alone.

"How do we do this?"

Eric lowered his head to suck lightly on my earlobe before whispering into my ear. "I will bite my wrist and you will drink."

To avoid the ick factor I kept talking. "I think you should drink from me too."

Eric froze for a moment before lifting his head, his face still. "Why?"

I wanted to give him a long, practical list, like the one he had given me but I really only had one reason. "I want you to," I murmured. "I'd rather your dead bartender wasn't the only vampire to have bit me."

Eric watched me as if he was waiting for me to say 'Just kidding!' I didn't. I leaned up, dipping my fingers into his long hair and kissed him until he turned heavy and urgent against me.

"I would like that too," Eric hummed against my lips. He leaned back and lifted his wrist to his mouth. I heard a crunching, tearing sound and then his bloody skin was before my gawking mouth. A drop of blood hit my tongue and it was strangely thick and sweet. "Drink, Sookie."

I pulled my hand from his hair and held his wrist to my mouth. I let my tongue sneak out and wipe against the bite and Eric's hips rolled against me as he moaned quietly. I closed my eyes and swallowed and Eric nuzzled against my collarbone, licking and kissing and groaning. My legs spread and his hips fell between mine, his penis resting against the slick lips of my pussy. I thought maybe we were going to ignore our pledge of waiting for a full night when Eric's hips rolled again, but he never moved to press inside me, only rubbed gently and rhythmically. I groaned and then sucked at Eric's wrist.

The bite was closing, I could feel it shrinking under my tongue. Eric's mouth was over one of my breasts, licking and grazing with his fangs but not biting, while his hand played with the other. I thought maybe he had changed his mind about biting me and I didn't like that one bit, so I opened my mouth and clenched my teeth over his wrist. He groaned against my breast, his hips picking up the pace while mine rutted back eagerly. My teeth tore his skin and Eric's chest roared against mine. His fangs sunk into my breast and I came with a long, satisfied whimper. Eric spilled against my sheets, his free hand lifting my back up in an arch towards his mouth. I released his wrist and wrapped my hands into his hair to hold him against me.

I felt powerful, I could see the stars shining, individually, out my window. I could hear Gran breathing quietly in sleep up the stairs. I could feel Eric and I trembling against one another. That was the headiest feeling, the knowledge that I had reduced a thousand year old vampire to animal trembles of satisfaction. I was impressed with myself. Eric soothed my breast with his tongue before sliding up to gaze at me. His expression was soft, stunned, and a little amused. Despite all of the confidence I felt, I still had to ask.

"Was that okay?"

Eric's mouth dove down to devour mine. I could taste my own blood, bitter compared to his. His hands rubbed at my sides, over my hips, squeezing and brushing and claiming.

"You are the best surprise I have ever had," Eric said. "You are mine."

"Yes," I said, making him kiss me insistently again. And I thought, _You're mine too, for now_.

**AN: Hello lovelies! Thank you again for the incredible response. I'm going ahead and posting this a bit early because I am bored on the Megabus. As always, pretty please, leave a review. I own nothing but the pleasure I receive from hearing from all of you!**


	5. Chapter 5

"Well. Did you have a nice time last night?"

I froze over the coffee pot in the kitchen, still wearing my pajamas. Gran stood in the doorway with her arms crossed.

"At work?" I asked, and then held my breath.

Gran snorted. "I saw Eric flying in before I fell asleep, Sookie Stackhouse."

"Oh. Yeah. He came to talk about the rogue vampires," I said. It was mostly true but even I knew that my voice was _too _innocent sounding.

"Bull hickey," Gran said.

I spun around and raised the coffee up to my face, as if the steam could excuse my blush, before speaking. "You told me to have fun where I could."

Gran turned a little pink in the cheeks. "That's true."

We both looked in different directions for a moment.

"Who're you worried about, exactly?" I asked her after a tense pause. "Cause I'm guessing it ain't the thousand year old vampire sherrif."

"Oh, like you ain't a handful and a half," Gran said, fighting a smile. "And lately a trouble magnet, too… He good to you?"

I thought about it and goofy smile tried to grow over my cheeks. I fought it down. "Yes ma'am."

"Is he… is he patient?"

I blushed and grumbled. "More than I am."

Gran cleared her throat and then shrugged. "Well, I guess that's alright then. S'pose I don't have to worry bout you turning up pregnant, at least."

"Gran!"

"Not that I'd look very threatening to Eric even if I did point a shotgun at him."

I laughed at the old country image in my head of Gran finding Eric and I together in the haystack of some barn, caught with our pants down. She'd be five times more embarrassed than Eric ever would. I took a nice gulp of coffee to cover my giggles.

"It doesn't bother you that I'm seeing a man that's older than you?" I teased.

Gran swatted my behind on her way to the stove. "It's funny isn't it? I know from speaking to him how old he really is, but most of the time he acts about as young as he probably was when he became a vampire. I wonder if they all do that, or if they learn it to make us more comfortable?"

I was about to say that I didn't think Eric really worried about other people's comfort too often, but then I remembered how often he had respected my comfort since I met him, so I just hummed and sat to watch Gran whip up some breakfast.

We never blamed each other for what happened next - at least not out loud - but I think we were both a little responsible. We were flying high after eliminating Longshadow and chasing the rogues away from me at Merlotte's. Eric and I were both confident in his ability to protect me from vampires. We hadn't anticipated the humans.

The next night I got home and I was giddy. My schedule gave me three evenings off in a row, even though I would be working the lunch shifts instead. In my eyes that meant Eric and I would spending that promised night alone together, and if I knew I had more than one free maybe he would share a few others with me. I was rushing into the house, headed to the kitchen, thinking about calling him at Fangtasia and giving him the good news, and it never occurred to me to wonder why I couldn't hear Gran in the back of my head. I'd always done my best to stay out of her thoughts, out of respect, maybe that's why I didn't realize something was wrong until I saw the blood on the floor.

The blood everywhere.

The cabinets, the table, the broken back door, the window, the fridge.

My first thought was that Eric should have given Gran his blood too, so maybe I did blame him a little. Then I was on my hands and knees, screaming, sliding across the floor, holding Gran - all cut up on her arms and her neck bruised by dangling rope - crying, and screaming, and screaming, and screaming.

The thing about living way out alone in the country is that you can do that, scream and scream and scream, and no one is going to hear you. Not even the redneck speeding down the road will hear you over Brad Paisley blasting on his stereo. The phone in the kitchen was ringing and ringing and I was screaming and screaming. The phone would stop ringing and I would keep screaming, and then it would start ringing again. That must have been Pam. I don't know if Eric could get signal while he was flying.

I don't know how long it took him to get to the house. I was sobbing, my face dipped in Gran's blood, my work clothes soaked in it. My throat was hoarse. I heard him shouting my name from outside, heard the front door bang open, heard his feet hit inhumanly fast against the floorboards. He stopped in the doorway of the kitchen. Maybe it was all the blood and he didn't trust himself. It occurred to me that this was not a good place for a vampire to be, but I didn't move, I didn't let go of Gran. Maybe he was just angry and heartbroken over her death like I was and he was frozen in shock.

"Sookie," he said sharply. "Sookie, are you hurt?"

I hurt so much inside that he couldn't tell the difference between my heartbreak and any possible injury.

I didn't answer, at least not fast enough. His hands were on my arms, the dry spots. He pried me away, let Gran slide off my lap, streaking me with red, to the floor again. He pulled me up and backed me out of the room. He spun me in his arms and cupped my head, but not my cheeks where I was bloody.

"Are you hurt?" he asked. This time his voice was urgent.

I shook my head no, but I think I moaned yes so slowly it wasn't even a word. His blue eyes were on me, dilated father than I had ever seen them. His fangs were down. He didn't touch the blood, not once.

"Is there another phone in the house?" he asked.

I pointed in the direction of the living room.

"You have to call the police," he ordered, already digging his phone out of his pocket. His fingers blurred over the keys. "Call them, Sookie," he snapped, making me jump.

I walked to the living room, leaving red footprints behind me. I lifted the receiver and dialed 911.

"Kevin? It's Sookie Stackhouse." I didn't recognize my own voice. "You need to come by. Gran's been killed."

That's probably not how emergency calls usually go, but I guess it's all right in a small town. I turned to go back to the kitchen but Eric called to me from the porch. He stood stiffly, a white dishcloth in his hand. I stared at it, not comprehending. He stepped forward and brushed at my cheeks with the towel softly, and then more deliberately, like he was testing himself. Looking back on it, his control probably went above and beyond anything reasonable. I didn't realize in that moment how sensitive he was being, how delicate with me, how human. He wiped the blood from every part of me but my clothes, covering every inch of the towel with red. Mostly what I saw in him was tension.

The police blamed me, not for the actual act of murdering Gran, but they thought it was my fault. Stupid Sookie getting involved with vampires while fangbangers were being murdered. It got Jason off the hook though. He'd been at the station being questioned the whole time. I got it straight from his own head that he blamed me too, but he was too scared of Eric, silent and still at my side, to do anything about it.

"Sookie, I need you to invite Pam into the house," Eric said, as Jason and the police pulled out of the drive. It was late, getting early. Eric wouldn't be able to stay much longer. He was holding the phone to my face.

"Why?" I asked, and my voice was a croak.

"She will clean the house while I clean you."

"Come on in, Pam," I said as if she was standing right in front of me. Eric took my hand and led me inside straight to my bedroom.

He knelt down and lifted my feet out of my shoes. His movements were quick but careful. Sometimes I thought he was so careful because he was calculating every action to avoid scaring me off, sometimes I thought it was because he was afraid of hurting me. He peeled my shirt and shorts off of me, somehow able to barely touch me.

"May I?" he asked, gesturing to my underwear.

I reached behind me and shrugged my bra off, and then pushed my panties down myself. He stepped forward as if to kiss me before stopping himself.

"I'm sorry," he said softly. "You smell like blood. I can only…"

He could only take so much. Later, on a different disaster, when it was less necessary to be so gentle with me I would see by comparison how much control he had really exerted that night. At the time I just walked past him and turned the water on scorching hot and stepped in. I was thinking that on Monday I'd been bitten by Longshadow, and then covered in his decaying blood. I had showered. Then the day before I had come home edgy from new vampires and self conscious about grease. I had showered. Tonight I had found Gran torn open, soaked myself in her blood. I showered. There were just things soap couldn't wash away.

It was several minutes before Eric joined me in the shower. I had thought he had been debating whether or not to leave, but actually he had just taken my shoes and clothes out to be burned along with the bloody towel and anything stained from the kitchen. His touch as he washed me was brief and efficient, as far from sensual as it could get. It wasn't till I turned and faced him that I saw the red tracks over his cheeks. It took me a minute to be shocked.

"Are those tears?" I whispered, brushing my finger over his cheekbone. He nodded and I sighed, resting my head against his chest. His arms wrapped around my back. I didn't know how Eric really felt about me but I knew in that moment that he had loved Gran as a friend. That meant a lot to me.

"Sookie," he said, his voice tight as if to keep from breaking. "You hurt so much. I cannot believe that you aren't wounded. I keep looking but…"

"I am wounded."

Since he didn't search me head to toe I think he understood what I meant. He massaged soap into my hair and I closed my eyes. I couldn't quite _enjoy_ the feeling of being taken care of given the circumstances, but it didn't make the ache in me worse than it already was.

"I want to take you to a safe house," he said. "Until my people find the killer."

"No."

His hands stilled in my hair. "Sookie, don't be-"

"Don't say stupid," I warned in a flat tone. "I won't forgive you for it."

"Reckless," he said easily and I will never know if that was what he meant. "The killer was the one responsible for the strangled women." He made a point of not remembering their names, I thought.

"How do you know that?" I asked. The police thought it was too impossible for there to be two murderers in one town, but a vampire would never be that naïve.

"I have been investigating since you brought it to my attention," he said. "The scents are the same. A human is killing women who associate with vampires."

"Last night I said I was yours in front of a crowded bar," I said.

"Yes."

So I was at fault too. I didn't have any tears left in me so I didn't cry at Eric's confirmation.

"I can't leave. People will start showing up in the morning. They'll bring food and advice and… Lord, Maxine Fortenberry will stay for hours." A safe house was starting to sound good.

"Leave a note on the door," Eric suggested. "It can say, 'Mind your own business, human scum.'"

I kind of wanted to laugh. "Gran would never forgive me."

We were quiet for a while after that. Eric rinsed my hair so meticulously that the soap never even touched my face.

"It will make me uneasy to leave you unprotected here for the day," he said.

"I'm a human, Eric. I can't just start living at night because that's the only time you're awake to keep an eye on me."

"You could be-"

"Don't do that right now. I can't have that conversation now."

He might have been a little offended at my cutting him off in his offer of making me a vampire, but no one could say that that wasn't bad timing on his part.

"I will go to ground in the cemetery," he said. "If something harms you I may be able to wake long enough to help. Or I may burn up in the sunlight."

Geez. Was he guilt tripping me? "I'll keep my shotgun on me."

"That is reassuring." He wasn't kidding even a little bit, and it made me oddly pleased that he didn't say something about me being a girl and not being able to shoot.

"You're going to sleep in the ground?"

"It will be your turn to wash me tomorrow evening," he said and it was the first playful thing he had said since he found me with Gran.

I was about to mention that I would have the next few evenings off like I was planning on telling him earlier, but then I realized that I would have the days off too because Gran was dead now and no one would expect to see me working for awhile. I went quiet. Eric could probably feel my mood change for the worse and I hoped he didn't think it was because of what he said. We didn't speak. Eric ran conditioner through my locks, finished washing me, and dried me off. I could hear water running in another part of the house. Pam was cleaning. I wondered if she thought I was worth the trouble, and I suspected she did not.

Eric frowned to himself as I put on a sleep shorts and a tank top. I thought maybe he'd been planning on a seduction but instead he said, "Vampires have long felt vulnerable as they've gone down for the daylight. It has never been a human's safety I feared for. You should call your boss."

"Sam? Why?" I didn't have the emotional energy to be annoyed with anyone at the moment but I couldn't fathom why Eric would want me to spend the day with Sam.

"He is a Shifter," Eric said. "I hate to say it but his company would be better than none."

I sighed and sank onto my bed. "A what?"

I might have believed Eric was stirring up trouble if he hadn't looked so genuinely surprised. "I assumed you knew."

I held up my hand. "Don't tell me. I'll call Sam. He can explain it to me himself."

Eric nodded and then turned his head to he door, as if he was listening. "I need to assist Pam. I'll come back… I'll have time before sunrise. May I hold you?"

He was so formal and I suspected he was nervous about dealing with me in this state. It didn't make me feel real special.

"Sure, Eric."

I lay down over the covers because it was hot and because I didn't really give a shit, to be honest. Eric flipped the light off on his way out but I didn't close my eyes to try and sleep. I'm not even sure whether or not I blinked. There was a probably a part of me hiding itself away that was absolutely terrified that night, that could not get past the selfish thought of my own body in a puddle of my own blood.

Eric came back a bit later and watched me from the doorway. Was he planning an escape? No. He put us both under the covers and held me to his chest.

"Pam says that you are human and you should cry," he said, uncertain. It didn't matter, I had started to tear almost as soon as he put his arms around me. He realized this, and rolled us so that he was hovering over me. He leaned down as tears tracked their way over my cheeks. He sniffed once and then licked them away, his face curious.

"Wipe them with your fingers," I explained before I started sobbing, so that was what he did instead.

It was strange. In a way, it was the strangest thing that had ever happened to me. It certainly hadn't happened to anyone else I knew. It was also comforting. He probably could have said something along the lines of time healing my wounds, or that it would hurt less soon, and he'd have had the years and experience to back those sentiments up. Instead he held me and cleaned away my tears. He didn't waste one drop.

**AN: I apologize for this being later than I promised, I had a bit of a conundrum. I got some absolutely wonderful feedback and some really great critiques after the last chapter about how quickly this was moving and how something questions were left unanswered. I totally agree with you! I'm primarily focusing on Eric and Sookie and rushing through the plot because it's so familiar. I did want to write a chapter to go between this one and the last one that would have a convo with Gran (which I added in) and a scene with the Disco Triplets, but in the end time was running out and I decided that no, this will not be a perfect story, but I hope you can all enjoy it anyways. Thank you again to those who were brave enough to point out flaws, I really appreciate every drop of feedback I get.**


	6. Chapter 6

**Warning for the following: LEMONAAAADE**

Sam came by the next morning and it was not my finest hour. I was going a little nutty with grief, not to mention that he barged into my bedroom to wake me up and stared at me in my nightshirt the way a girl who has just lost her most beloved family member does not want to be stared at by her boss. We covered the Shifter business pretty immediately and I kicked him out. Eric would be incensed when he found out, but I was incensed in the moment to discover that someone had been hiding a secret not unlike mine for about as long as they had known me and known my own abilities. Also Sam was now openly projecting his desire to bed and woo me. It was too little too late and a lot creepy in my opinion.

I called Lafayette.

"Hey Hooker," he said sleepily. He was nothing if not consistent. "You need anything?"

"You got a gun?"

He cleared his throat. "'Course I do. I'm a gay black man in the deep south."

"Want to help keep away the vultures?"

Lafayette laughed for a long time. Then he came over with his gun and a bag of pills. They were definitely a temptation, but I thought about what Eric would think if he knew that I not only kicked out my best protection for the day, but also drugged myself to sleep while someone wanted to kill me. If I lived to sunset, he would probably kill me himself. Lafayette drank the old liquor Gran kept on hand 'in case' and I ate the leftovers in the fridge until I thought I might burst. I ate Gran's food like it was a form of exorcism. The kitchen smelled like bleach and lemons. Pam was surprisingly domestic.

I let a few people come in. Jason, of course, although the visit was tense and brief and he was always just shy of exploding at me. Lafayette watched him with a thinly veiled suspicion that made it all worse. Hoyt and Maxine visited and left a casserole. A few Descendants of the Dead swung by, saw my shotgun and Lafayette and said they'd see me at the funeral. I was hanging onto my sanity and my good manners by something less than a thread. Suddenly, being a vampire sounded like a blessing, being forced to shut down for half a day, not having to go through the motions in daylight. But somehow I knew that if I went to ground, if I put myself to sleep with a valium, I wouldn't care if I got up again. It wasn't an attractive thought. I wanted to be a fighter, but I wasn't feeling it that day. Or maybe I was, maybe that's how I got through it.

I was washing the scavenged bones of the dishes that had held Gran's leftovers as the sun sank.

"Hooker!" Lafayette called from the porch. "Someone's comin'."

I picked the shotgun up from where I had it leaning against the counters at my side and ran to the front door. Eric was crossing the yard at a human pace, chest dusted with dirt and his shirt hanging stylishly over his shoulder like a model. His pants were zipped but not buttoned.

"It's okay," I said. "That's just my…" Eric raised an eyebrow and I tested the waters, "…vampire." He smiled.

"Mmmmhmm," Lafayette hummed in approval. "He could have left the pants off too."

"Be careful," Eric warned with a sincerely frightening look. Lafayette froze and in his mind I could tell that he was realizing this was the vampire Dawn had fucked. "My human is possessive and holding a gun."

I actually smiled and Eric winked at me. Lafayette was floored.

"Where is the-?"

I cut Eric off before he could give away Sam's secret in front of someone else. "Sam came by in the morning and I asked him to leave."

Eric's eyes narrowed and Lafayette thought that whatever I'd done to receive Eric's disapproval was a bad, bad, bad idea. "Why, my lover, did you ask him to do that?"

It was my turn to narrow my eyes. I liked the endearment, but I thought his timing might have been a bit off. "He pissed me off," I said.

Eric smirked. "Very well, then." He turned to Lafayette and studied him for a nerve-wracking minute. "Thank you for staying with Sookie today," he said and Lafayette's normally busy brain went radio silent with surprise aside from a brief _Holy fuck_. "I will take over from here."

To Lafayette's credit, he actually looked at me to double check I was okay with this before he high-tailed it out to his car.

"What about Fangtasia?" I asked.

"I requested the night off," Eric said. "I am the boss so it was a request easily met." He flashed up the porch stairs in a quick blink as Lafayette drove off. I let him look me over and try to puzzle me out. "I am worried about how you feel, lover. Numb."

"Last night was…" Awful, catastrophic, the end of a huge part of my life, an ongoing disaster. "…A lot. Lafayette had pills, and I thought about taking them."

"You did not."

"No." I shook my head. "I would have been an easy target."

Eric leaned down and pressed a cold kiss against my forehead. "I am grateful you thought this way."

"Eric." My voice started to break. "I need you to distract me. For a long time. All night at least."

He wrapped an arm around my waist and I jumped up to wrap my legs around his waist. He kissed me and pressed my back against the doorjamb.

"More," I said as he pulled away.

"Someone would say it is too soon and I am taking advantage of your grief," he said, although I got the sense this was meant to double check my choice.

"Fuck 'em," I said. "We were halfway there already and they aren't invited to join us."

Eric smiled, somewhere between cocky and fond. He probably knew what was going to happen tonight before he went to ground at dawn. I appreciated that he treated it as my choice even when it was so clearly inevitable.

"I have to wash you first," I added, brushing a bit of dirt off his shoulder blade.

He nipped my neck. "Yes. You owe me."

His humor was simultaneously heart-breaking and a relief. He walked us into the house and through my room into the connecting bathroom as I held onto him with my arms and legs. He made it easy and two days ago we both would have been laughing. Now our smiles were small and built more out of the comfort of each other than they were out of the thrill of what was coming. We undressed each other, but with a lot more touching than last night and by the time we were under the water I was panting and Eric's mouth was searching out every exposed inch of my skin.

I flip-flopped between the events of the night before, and the shocking understanding that this was a man who had seen me nude twice and tonight we were going to have sex, something I had resigned myself to never enjoying up until meeting Eric. I relished the task of washing Eric, having the excuse to touch him everywhere, in places I had only seen in the memories of others. He seemed equally thrilled with every skim of my fingers, and he dropped his forehead against mine as I washed his hair clean. My hands grew greedy over his perfect ass until he laughed and held them away from me, sinking to his knees in my small tub and pressing his lips between my legs.

"Oh, god. Eric, you can't-"

He chuckled against my sensitive skin and swiped his tongue out to taste me. I dropped my head back to hit the tile behind me.

"I assure you, my lover. I can."

And boy did he! He held my ass in his hands, my toes brushing the floor just barely. His mouth licked and grazed and sucked and blew, warm from the water.

"Look at me, Sookie."

As soon as I caught the electric heat of his gaze I fell apart above him. I could feel myself going limp, losing the precarious balance above him, but then suddenly he was up, rubbing his body against mine, drawing my trembles out. I tried to let myself drop.

"Let me…" I said although I couldn't get the full thought out, just brushed my fingers over his erect penis where it pressed against my stomach.

"No," he said gently. "I must be inside you, here," one of his fingers dove up where his tongue had just been, "first."

He swirled his finger and I moaned, closing my eyes. The water was starting to cool. Eric turned the faucet off and lifted me out of the tub with one arm while the other hand continued to make me squirm. His finger went deeper and deeper, swirled out to spread me. He added a finger and I clung to him. It was more than I had ever felt on my own, more than he had shown me yet, and I felt paralyzed and eager.

He dried me with a towel and I shook on unsteady legs as he pumped me with two fingers. When I tried to dip and take more, his hand anticipated me and scooted away. I whimpered in frustration.

"Eric."

"You are beautiful, lover," he murmured. I looked at him and was amazed at how he gazed at me, reverent and awed. I felt beautiful.

"I can't stand," I said.

Eric lifted me and took me to the bed, leaving me in the center. His fangs were down and I reached up and brushed a finger over each of them. His hips jerked so hard in response that for a moment the head of his penis was brushing over me next to his fingers. He added a third and I cried out as my orgasm hit me like an anvil and his touch tore inside of me. He pumped until I stopped shaking and I hissed as he pulled his fingers out. He licked blood off of them.

"I am too large," he explained. "I would've hurt you."

He pricked a finger on his fang and licked it, coating it in his blood and saliva. His finger returned to it's place inside of me and I bucked, making him chuckle. The sting faded and Eric added a second finger, spreading me. It was starting to feel a little surgical aside from his eager eyes, then his mouth lowered to kiss me and I forgot about the work of it and started feeling the pleasure again.

"This is a lot of work for one fuck," I said, crude in my insecurity.

Eric brushed wet hair from my face. His face was stern and full of hunger and a terrifying strength. "Not one fuck, Sookie. A lifetime of it."

I gasped, at his words and also at the sudden shock of him pressing inside of me, his hips circling, driving deeper by small fractions until I was finding his rhythm and pulling him in. It was too much, too much sensation and too much novelty of experience for me to digest the meaning of his words. I pulled his face to mine, kissed him to push aside the deep, stretching ache of his closeness. When he was all the way in, his hips moved like tiny waves, stimulating. I couldn't focus, couldn't think, and I latched my mouth onto his shoulder. I was sobbing in pleasure and fear at what he could make me feel, how much he could draw out of me. My teeth clamped down, not hard enough to break his skin, but enough to shock him into bucking. It was painful and it made hot bursts of delight flare out from my center to the tips of my toes and fingers. I was chanting obscenities and praise mixed with his name and the moment of climax was so gradual and so long that I lost track of it. Eric's mouth was on my neck as I came slowly and thoroughly.

"Bite!" It was a command and he followed it. I had one sharp, shocking orgasm on top of the gentler one and Eric growled in a foreign tongue as he finished with a deep shudder, pulling sips of blood and kissing my breasts and face.

"Lover." Eric's face was against my neck, kissing and licking sweat away. "Lover," he repeated.

I woke up quite a bit later, and felt a silly pang of disappointment.

"You said all night," I said, turning in Eric's arms. He had wrapped himself around me and I think he had fallen into what I called 'down time' while I slept. His laughter at my chastisement was loud and shook the bed. It felt like it'd been a long time since I'd seen him laugh that hard and it warmed me.

"You needed the rest," he said, leaning forward to kiss my temple and then my nose and then my lips for a long time. "Are you sore, lover?"

I twisted and rolled against him, intentionally teasing him and enjoying his resulting growl. "Yes," I admitted. "Not badly," I added, surprised by the shadow that passed over his eyes. "But I might walk bow-legged for a bit."

"I see," Eric said, doubtfully. I was only joking a little. I wouldn't have been surprised if I did walk funny tomorrow. He pulled away from my legs and then sat up in the bed.

"Eric! I was only kidding," I said.

"No, no," he said, his eyes smiling enough to let me know that he wasn't really offended. "We'll have to find an alternative."

"An alternative?" I asked, my eyes wide.

Eric lifted me from the mattress and I released a shocked squeal. He batted my hands away from my body. I couldn't really explain it after everything he had done to me, but I was suddenly feeling bashful. He proceeded to have me straddle his lap. He shimmied underneath me, the tip of his sudden erection brushing between my legs.

"No," he shook his head as I gaped at him. "That won't do. Turn around, Sookie. Put your hands on the bed."

I shivered as I turned and presented Eric with my ass. He pressed his hips against the back of my legs and ran his hand down my spine.

"This has possibilities," he said. "But I think it's a little soon, don't you?"

I had no response other than a hitch in my breath.

"Lay down on your side, lover."

I obeyed and Eric spooned me from behind, slipping his dick between my legs and sliding against my now slick lips.

"I like this," Eric commented, his voice as even as ever. I wanted to smack him. "I can touch your neck, your breasts, your stomach. But it's a bit tricky in the rhythm."

I thought he seemed to be doing all right.

"On your back," he said, fighting a grin.

I rolled my eyes but I shifted onto my back. Eric took my ankles and lifted them straight into the air before sinking right into me, making my back arch and my voice cry out in surprise and relief.

"Keep your knees together and cross your ankles," Eric instructed and I snorted, because that was what they taught debutantes and I wondered if he knew that. "Cross your ankles behind my head, Sookie," he corrected with a smirk.

I moaned as I obeyed. I could feel every inch of him and he was deeper and I was tighter and it hurt and it was wonderful.

"Perfect," he hissed, and he kissed the inside of my calf. He moved horribly slow and my fingers could only dig into the mattress as my back rolled and arched and shook in response to his purposeful torture.

I was begging incoherently and not once did Eric change his pace. When I came it was like a house of cards falling in slow motion and then Eric lifted my legs away and folded them against my stomach. I felt like a solid rock of pleasure all over again. Incomprehensibly wound tight and dense with wicked agony. He pumped hard and fast into me, his hands holding me still so I could only accept every slap of our flesh coming together with a pant or a moan of exhausted thanks. I came again – not with a whimper but with a bang - drawing his own orgasm out and he was careful to turn me to my side before collapsing.

It took me a few moments to catch my breath before I could speak.

"Is that an Eric Northman guarantee?" I asked. I could feel his head tilt against me in question. "At least two orgasms per coupling?"

He laughed again and even he sounded a little winded, I was pleased to note. He ran a hand up my stomach to squeeze my breast. "I enjoy your pleasure, lover," he said.

It wasn't quite a straight answer, not that I really needed one since I had meant it as a joke, but it made me feel like the attention he paid to my pleasure was maybe not a guarantee, but something he reserved. I wasn't vain enough, or secure enough, to think it was something he had reserved just for me, but I was confident enough in his compliment to believe that not everyone was as lucky as I was.

"So do I," I quipped and Eric laughed again.

It was an unspoken agreement between us that my body couldn't really take much more. Eric even hinted that he was pleasantly surprised by how much we had managed. I thought maybe he would look for a way to bow out gracefully for the last few hours before daylight, but instead he remained at my side, his hands stroking me gently, absently.

At a certain point, reality had to sink back in and when it did I did not receive it gracefully. I could feel it coming and I lashed out defensively.

"I think it's time for you to go," I said near four in the morning. I was looking at the clock thinking that this time last night Eric had put me in the shower to wash Gran's blood off of me. I was letting shame that I had refused to see coming spoil what I had just experienced. Eric stilled, and then rolled me to my back, his eyes searching my face.

"No," was all he settled on.

I grimaced and my hands flashed out to shove him. He didn't budge and it was probably the first time I realized how futile my strength was next to his. He took my hands in his and folded them gently over my stomach, holding them there.

"Sookie, I promised you all night," he said, his face steady. It was that gentle reminder of our previous teasing that reduced me to tears. I really hated myself in that moment, for demanding that Eric distract me with sex and then resenting him for it.

He accepted my tears, plucked them into his mouth with his fingertips and tongue when they rolled onto my lips. I kissed him as I cried, tried to push him away, and then finally settled and allowed him to carry on holding me.

"You're so patient," I murmured much later after my fit had passed.

"I am quite old," Eric said simply, brushing my temple with his nose. "Much of survival is allowing the worst things to pass you by."

That sounded pretty wise to me.

**AN: I could give some psychological justification for them jumping into bed together but to be honest - I did it cause I wanted to. I hope you all enjoyed it! Leave me a review even if you think I made a terrible mistake. I'll try and return to regular weekly updates at this point. Probably only four chapters left. LOVE.**


	7. Chapter 7

**AN: A little smut and a little plot.**

The next day was a never-ending delivery of the business of death. I met with police officers alongside the condolences of neighbors. I met with the family lawyer and the local undertaker. I received a long line of vultures who helped themselves to my kitchen like it was an exhibit in a carnival. Come and See the scene of Murder! Horrors! Shivers! Shocks! I didn't have the time to worry about my life being on the line, not when I didn't even have a single moment to myself.

To entertain myself I imagined what the conversation would be like if I were Pam. Short, I suspected.

Luckily in the south, it's rude to visit at dinnertime without an invitation so I knew I'd be left alone at sunset since Jason wasn't talking to me enough to sit across from me at the table. I slipped out of my too hot trousers and buttoned blouse and then I slipped out of the rest and put on a white bikini. I spread myself out on a lawn chair and soaked up the last hour of daylight alone in my yard. I undid the top and turned to lie on my stomach. I closed my eyes as one empty spot blinked into existence not far into the cemetery.

I felt Eric approach and the clarity of it surprised me. I realized as I waited for him that I had held my mental blocks up for the day better than I ever remembering doing before then. Eric purred as he grew closer and he breathed out over the bare skin of my back, leaving goosebumps.

"Vampire bait," Eric accused, grazing his dull teeth over my shoulder. His tongue darted out and flicked against my skin making us both groan. "Lover, you give me a thirst I have never known before."

I rolled over in my seat and Eric ran his eyes over my skin like he hadn't seen me in weeks instead of a handful of dead hours. His hands reached under my neck and hips and I could feel him lifting me up.

"No," I said and he paused. "Here."

I returned the shocking sky blue stare of his with a faint smile. I felt deliciously peaceful outside, alone with him, knowing for certain that there was no one else miles around us.

"You are a revelation, Sookie," he said before meeting my demand.

Where the night before had felt like a thorough introduction for Eric Northman's Pleasure Seminar 101, this was gentle and intimate. I had taken him off guard, surprised him, and now he watched me with curious eyes. He studied my responses to every touch, experimented and adjusted until my fingers were in his hair and my legs were knotted around his waist. His eyes never strayed from my face so I held his in return and let the admiration shining there soak into me. We came together with a soft kiss and Eric shifted us so that I lay over him, his hands providing the bare necessity of modesty over my bottom.

I suppose the bubble had to burst.

"I need to see to my business," Eric said. I realized he was hesitating and it surprised me. It seemed out of character for him. He settled on the highhanded version of his worry. "You should not be alone here."

"You want me to call Lafayette?" I asked, hiding a growing smile against his cool chest.

"No, Lover," he said tersely. "I am not sure the Gumbo Queen will do the trick."

I laughed, high and happy from good sex. Eric held still. "Laf might actually like that name. What do you want me to do, Eric?"

He held his words in, surely trying to predict my response and if making a demand for my safety would be worth my reaction to being bossed.

I let him off the hook. "Because I was thinking about putting in a night at Fangtasia. A change of scenery could be good for me."

Eric leaned back and waited for me to catch his eyes. "You were teasing me?"

I tried not to grin too wide. "Yeah, Eric. I was teasing you."

He rolled his eyes. "You are getting cocky."

"Whose fault is that?" I rolled my hips against his and he laughed, lifting us out of the chair with an easy motion.

"We will bathe and I will dress you," he said, taking long steps to the farmhouse.

"Excuse you mister, but I am not a doll!"

"If this was the roaring twenties that is exactly what I would call you."

"Well it's the twenty-first century and you can call me Sookie."

"I will call you my lover."

"Maybe when we're alone," I grumbled as Eric came to a halt just inside the house. He set me carefully the floor, his eyes narrowing. I scanned the house and the property but we were every bit as alone as we had been at first dark. "What's up?"

"Stay here," he said, soft and sharp.

"Eric," I said as he began to zip through one room after the other. "We're alone."

In a blink he was gone from the kitchen and towering over me, his face thunderous as his hands gripped my upper arms. I felt so strange, the two of us naked, the glow of having just made love faded in the wake of his murderous anger. I knew it wasn't directed at me but it didn't make me feel any less vulnerable.

"He was here," Eric growled.

"Who was?" I asked, even as I realized I knew the answer.

"Sookie. The killer, he was here. Today. There was no trace of the scent after Pam finished cleaning and now it is back. Who was here?" He shook me a little and it was harder than I expected although I couldn't say the hurt was physical. I yanked myself away and stomped towards my room with as much dignity as a naked girl with big boobs and a bikini tan can.

"Who wasn't here? The whole damn town walked through the house today, Eric," I snapped. I slammed the door shut in his superhuman-fast face.

"Sookie," he growled.

"There's a shower upstairs," I yelled back.

There was a moment of quiet broken by me rustling through my drawers for a matching set of underwear.

"Lover," his growl softened, "I will not leave you alone now that we know that Adele's killer is someone you trust in your home."

The dresser drawer closed with a bang and I snapped the elastic of my underwear against my skin as I yanked it on. I huffed but I could tell that Eric was still just outside the door. It wasn't locked but he was waiting. Even if it had been locked, what would that have mattered to Eric's strength? I shrugged a robe on and tied it shut before opening the bedroom door.

"Don't ever touch me in anger, Eric Northman," I snarled.

He blinked and for the briefest moment there was a deeply stricken look on his face. It washed away into evenness but I understood.

"I apologize," he said. He was still boiling in the knowledge of the murderer in my house, and so was I and we were lashing out at each other because we were the only ones available. He cared about Gran too, I reminded myself. And then I thought, _He cares about me_, and that surprised me. Maybe it shouldn't have by then, but it did.

"You didn't hurt me," I said and he showed his relief. "But I didn't like it."

"I understand."

"Lord, Eric, just get in here and put your pants on."

"Lover, you must think about who was here today," Eric said, coming into the room and sitting down on the bed. He didn't bother with his pants. "Did you hear nothing?"

"I made sure I wasn't listening in," I said. "You have no idea how ugly people can be when they think they're being kind to you. I gave myself a headache not listening."

Eric frowned. "Information is so valuable," he said, obviously puzzled by the thought that someone would not want to know the secrets of others. I suppose he thought it would make me powerful, but I wasn't a vampire and I wasn't the kind of person who used personal weaknesses against others.

"Imagine knowing every tragedy, insult, and injury inflicted on someone as if it were your own," I said, sitting down and taking Eric's hands in mine. "And then imagine knowing all of those that they had inflicted on others. And then multiply that by _every _person you have ever met and all the different weights of life that can be carried by one body and one mind, but it's all in yours too."

"I see," he said gravely after a long pause and I believed that he really did. "After so many years, I would be insane."

I shrugged. "Yeah well, everyone calls me Crazy Sookie anyways."

Eric set his hand on my shoulder. "I don't. Can you make a list of everyone that entered your home today?"

The subject change made my head spin but I was glad for it. "Yeah. I can. You shower."

Eric nodded and left a kiss on my temple before heading into the bathroom. I found an old bill envelope, a nagging reminder that I now had this old house to keep up on full time pay as a bar maid and a bit on the side as telepath, and started my list. I was still working on it, in my robe, when Eric emerged clean and dressed – aside from his shirt – from the bathroom. He went directly to my closet.

"I don't think I have anything in your size."

"Ha ha," Eric said in a surprisingly good imitation of human sarcasm. He pulled out a bagged dress and lifted the plastic away to reveal a simple, high-collared, sleeveless black dress. "I would not have thought you owned a little black dress," he said absently, the words fitting oddly on his tongue. I wondered how much time Eric really spent thinking about my wardrobe.

"That's for… for funerals," I said. I had forgotten I owned that dress. "Gran bought me it for me a while back. She said the last thing you want to do after a loved one dies is go shopping for clothes."

I swallowed as Eric watched me and then I went back to my list and he put the dress away. For now. I would have to retrieve it again in a few days.

I looked up again as Eric started purring, or growling, something in between. In one hand hung the two hangers with the dresses I had already worn to Fangtasia, in the other was a tight, blood red dress, scandalously short, with the tag still on it.

"That was a gift."

"From who?" Eric growled.

"Lafayette."

The growl dissipated into chuckles. "I will give him a budget so he may buy all your clothes."

"Do it and it's the last you'll see of me," I snapped.

He raised one eyebrow and seemed to be considering whether or not I was over exaggerating. I was not. He put the other dresses away and prowled slowly in my direction. He nuzzled my face and I noticed that he smelled like my shampoo. I was instantly softened.

"Wear this for me tonight, Lover," he hummed against my ear, running tingles and sparks right down my neck and straight to my gut.

"I don't even know if it fits." My voice was gasping.

"You only have to wear it once," Eric purred. "I will tear it off you tonight."

"You'd better not." My protest was weak.

"I will. And then I will put you in another of my shirts. I enjoy that sight very much."

Eric lay on the bed while I squeezed myself into the red dress. I didn't feel very sexy as I shimmied my hips into the skirt and held my breath as I did up the zipper, my breasts only just fitting into the bodice. But when I finally looked at his face, mine flushed with effort and embarrassment, he was practically salivating. His fangs were definitely down. A wicked thought entered my head and I knelt on the bed and then bent over. It must have been a miracle that kept me in that dress at that moment. Or spandex.

Eric's blue eyes went dark as they dilated.

"You look hungry," I said, trying to sound casual. "You should feed before we go."

His eyes narrowed. "Lover, I have just enough self restraint to keep you in that dress for the majority of the evening. Do not test me. Besides, we do not have the time for sex, as much as I hate to admit it."

"Who said anything about sex, Eric? I'm you're human. You should feed."

Eric slid down the length of my bed as fast as a snake, his nose hovering just an inch away from mine. "You are more than blood, Sookie."

Which was really sweet actually. I wondered if he'd said that to anyone else. I kissed his cheek, lingering there.

"I know that. But tell me, would it be better if others knew that? Specifically the vampires who report to you at Fangtasia?" Eric's eyes narrowed but he listened. "It's one thing for you to call Pam to help clean up, but should everyone know I'm your telepathic lover? Or would it be better if they just thought I was the dumb blonde with sweet smelling blood who belonged to the Sheriff of Area Five?"

"You are as a shrewd as you are beautiful, Sookie Stackhouse," Eric said with genuine admiration.

I maneuvered myself over his lap and leaned my head back to present my neck. He licked at my pulse and his hand slid up the short skirt of my dress, his fingers pushing aside the flimsy fabric of my underwear.

"They will smell your satisfaction as they look at my mark," Eric murmured against my neck before gently piercing my skin.

"You weren't kidding," Eric said dryly. He was studying the list I had written on the electric bill envelope. "How could you possibly have spoken to so many in one day?"

"You should have charged admittance," Pam said and I snorted.

"Wait for the funeral," I said. "It just gets worse."

We sat alone in Eric's office just as Fangtasia opened. Pam explained that she and Eric never went out at the opening, but built up the anticipation of their reveal. I told her I liked her style and she hid a smile. She had also looked at my neck with approval when Eric and I arrived through the back together. I wasn't sure what to think of her dreamy expression after sniffing me, but I appreciated the way Eric growled a little at her in warning.

Eric passed her the list and she tucked it away.

"What are you going to do with that?" I asked glancing between the two of them.

"Question the suspects," Pam said. I got the feeling she was looking forward to this. I wondered if she'd ever gotten a detective's license.

I looked to Eric. "You understand that there's only one killer on that list right?"

Eric smirked and Pam rolled her eyes. "I will not bruise or bite them," she said. "Unless they ask me to."

"Stay away from Jason," I said. "I already know it wasn't him."

Pam narrowed her eyes and her lips twitched, I thought she was resisting a pout. She glanced at Eric whose face was tense with the effort of not smiling. He nodded once.

"You are a spoil sport," Pam said as she left the room and I laughed, a little nervously.

Eric was studying me as I turned back. I tried to mimic his motion of raising one brow.

"I am glad Pam knows your worth," he said. "Your interactions would be much less amusing if you were trying to behave."

"So how will this work?" I asked, changing the subject. "Do I come whisper to you every time I catch some thought to worry about?"

Eric sat up a little straighter and we were on the same business-like page. He opened a drawer in his desk and pulled out a shiny new smart phone. I grimaced.

"Sookie," he purred. "This is the best way. Consider it part of your contract."

"You didn't mention anything about a phone in the contract," I said.

"You did not stipulate that you would prefer the guilty humans to be subjected to human law. Obviously, we both have some editing to consider on the contract," Eric said. "If you text me your findings then no human or vampire will know that the information comes from you. Also, I will find it reassuring to know that I may reach you even when you are not at work or home. Remember the current situation."

It was immature of me, but his reasoning got on my nerves. I didn't like the feeling of being backed into accepting a gift.

"I want to pay the bill," I said. Eric opened his mouth to argue and I continued, "If you're calling me for personal reasons on that phone then it's not a business phone. And while I understand the necessity of my acting like a piece of property in front of other vampires, will any one else really know who is paying for the phone?"

Eric ground his teeth. "If there is any issue, you will tell me."

I bristled but took a deep breath. Anyone could see by the farmhouse that Gran and I managed finances by the skin of our teeth. And he was right. I had several different kinds of danger headed in my direction and it would be good to have a way of reaching Eric regardless of where I was.

"Okay."

We both lowered our shoulders at the resolution.

"I will be in and out of the bar with meetings," Eric continued. "There is a booth reserved for you. I'd prefer it if you kept no company."

"So would I," I said and I could see a little more tension leak out of him.

"There is the matter of any vampire who might try to glamour you," Eric said, and his voice had an angry bite.

"Even with your bite and blood and everything?" I asked. For all his talk about being _his_ meaning I would be safe, it seemed like there was still plenty of chance that vampires would ignore it.

He lifted a shoulder. "I suppose it is like an engagement ring. It is a sign of being spoken for but there are those who would ignore it, even ones who wear the ring."

I wondered if he was as insecure about me straying as I was about him.

"I don't need to make eye contact to read minds," I said. "It'll be hard enough sifting through everything. I'll keep my eyes to myself and if I feel anyone glamouring me-"

"You can feel it?"

"Yes. It's just pressure. I won't know what they expect me to do."

"Most vampires will need to hold eye contact. If you feel anything, text me immediately."

I nodded.

Eric rose and I followed, tugging my skirt down as I stood. When I finished he was standing over me.

"It would be out of character for me to touch and treat you as I would like to when we step into the bar," Eric said and I tried to convince myself that I was imagining the hint of disappointment in his gaze.

"I understand," I said gently. And I did. I didn't like it, and I didn't always know how to navigate it, but I understood.

Eric's arm twined around my waist and then he was kissing me senseless. It was romantic and urgent, as if he were never going to see me again, not sit across a crowded bar from me. I kissed him back with everything I had, every little nibble I had learned made him hungry for me. Just in case. In case he went out there and some fangbanger looked more tempting than usual, I suppose. We released each other and stepped apart, me breathing deeply and him standing straight, his eyes hot with lust.

"I look forward to the end of this night," he said.

Then he turned and headed to the door and I followed him a few paces behind. I waited in the hall and watched as he strode out onto the floor and every face turned in his direction. He settled himself into his regal table, perched higher than the others, and I slipped discreetly into the crowd. Everyone was too busy staring at my beautiful vampire to notice me emerge after him from the hall. It was difficult to resist the urge to put my blocks up when I was suddenly inundated with images of Eric fucking almost everyone in the room. Some of the fantasies were more accurate than others, they came from those women he'd actually entertained in his office. I felt sick and I found the small booth – small enough that it would be hard to fit anyone else in – that faced Eric's seat. I sank into it and kept my eyes on my hands and the new phone. Eric's picture, decadent and barely covered by a white sheet, smiled faintly up at me from the screen but it provided little humor or relief in the face of the surge of thought around me.

Part of me was offended for my own status as Eric's… well maybe not his girlfriend but his human, his lover. Another part of me was offended for Eric's own sake. People wanted horrible things from him, thought him capable of disgusting and cruel acts and did so with longing. I realized that as much as I hated knowing these things, I was glad it was me and not Eric hearing them.

The phone buzzed in my hand.

_They will never know my touch again, my lover._

A knot in my chest eased. The sentiment was kind but the choice to deliver it meant more to me. I nodded at my phone; sure that Eric was watching me.

**AN: BOO I am late. Sorry darlings. Please review! It fuels my fire.**


	8. Chapter 8

**AN: Without giving too much away, I dipped into the True Blood world a bit in this chapter because there was just one character I loved too much to leave out. You might be surprised by who it is. Enjoy!**

Within an hour I had found that I was able to isolate thoughts, drift from one brain to another like I was flipping pages in a book. I still wasn't thrilled with what I was hearing, so much of it sat on the edge of criminal, or at least immoral and it was difficult to tell what fantasies a person really wanted to act on. But I felt triumphant in my ability to sift through the information. I knew Eric would be impressed if I ever explained it to him.

Eric disappeared into the back every so often with another vampire, or human businessmen who looked uncomfortable and felt curious. The human men thought that if they met a woman here, she would do all of the things women had refused them before. The human women thought a vampire would not have to ask what felt good, would only deliver every desired sensation to them. To be fair, the women might have been right but they were sadly unaware of what that pleasure might cost them in most cases.

I texted Eric, who was reading emails in his office, to let him know that there was a group of under-age college students waiting in line outside. I was hitting 'send' when I felt the pressure in my mind. I focused on my phone, flipping through my contacts, 'Eric' and 'Pam' was all that had been entered, for the excuse to avoid looking up. The pressure was persistent and I realized it was coming from an empty spot that was approaching quickly. I opened another message box.

"What on earth is a creature as beautiful as you doing alone in this bar?" The voice was male, and strongly accented. A cross between english and southern, strangely.

"I belong to Eric Northman," I said, as I texted Eric a message. _Persistent vampire_, was all it said. I sent it as I saw out of the corner of my eye a pale white hand reaching toward my face. Alarm spread through my body and I leaned futilely away.

"Then he was a fool to walk away from you," the voice whispered, edged with both seduction and malice.

His fingertips were just brushing my chin when Eric spoke. "I never leave her for long."

He sounded cool as a cucumber and the hand retreated in a flash. I looked up, straight into Eric's face and felt embarrassingly grateful for his timing. His eyes were furious and his face was smiling calmly.

"Lover," he said and I took his hand and stood from the booth, smoothing my skirt as subtly as I could. "This is Franklin Mott."

Eric kept a possessive hand on my back and I studied Mott from underneath my lashes, as if I were shy and obedient. Really I just didn't want him locking gazes with me. He'd be an idiot, or insanely determined, to try and glamour me in front of Eric, but he'd already been stupid enough to try and touch me so I was keeping my guard up. He was only a few inches taller than me, and probably one of the least attractive vampires I had seen. His eyes were too big, his skin was pebbled, his nose bulbous and his hair uneven as if it had been cut by his own hand. He was downright diminutive compared to Eric but I got the feeling that that wasn't to say he was to be underestimated.

"Hello," I said. I could've been more gracious but considering the situation it didn't feel too necessary.

"She is delicious, where did you find her?"

"She found me," Eric said, his hand brushing gently against my back.

"She smells fresh."

_Goddamnit_, I thought. I was so sick of hearing that.

"She has had no other."

I tensed and flushed, and part of me hoped Franklin thought I was being bashful and the other part of me wondered if it would hurt Eric if I elbowed him in the junk.

"Lucky bastard," Mott said in a tone that might have worked if they were friends. I was pretty sure they were not. "I'm passing through. I thought I ought to check in."

"Yes," Eric said, as in 'Yes, those are the rules. Just like the rules are you can't touch my human.' "Sophie-Ann knows you are here?"

"Of course," Mott said and they smirked at each other. I translated this to mean, 'Of course, we both know she sent me.'

They both nodded and I froze as I caught a panicked thread of thought beyond the posturing vampires. I dug in as Eric and Mott spoke in uncomfortable code to one another. By the time they were winding down, I had pieced a dicey situation together.

"Would you excuse me?" I murmured and they both stilled at the interruption. Interrupting vampire business was a big no-no, good to know. "I need to use the little girl's room."

Even Eric frowned a little. Mott straight up grimaced. They both stepped away as if I were about to puddle straight on the floor. My eyeballs actually hurt from how hard I was trying not to roll them. I crossed the room like I was heading straight for the restrooms, and then paused as if surprised. I glanced briefly back at Eric who was studying me, now realizing that I was plotting. Mott was watching too. I looked around the room and then spoke to the man next to me, another undercover policeman.

"Huh. I wonder what those folks are doing in a place like this," I said conversationally. I was looking at a group of two men and a younger woman, nervous and jumpy in the crowd around them, their eyes fierce and spinning over faces.

"Excuse me?" He spoke to my breasts.

"Oh, you see, I'm from Monroe," I said. I nodded towards the small group. I whispered, "Everybody back home knows those three are drainers. Seems like a funny place for them to show up."

The policeman stiffened, as did many of the vampires in the room. "That is odd," he said, making up in his mind to arrest the drainers as quickly and quietly as possible.

"Yeah," I said and then shrugged as if it were someone else's problem. I finished my walk to the bathroom, texting Eric as I walked. _Make sure your people cooperate with the officer I spoke to_.

I listened to the drainer's panic as both Eric and the police officer, with his badge out, approached them. I was washing my hands when I received an answer.

_You are magnificent. I have spent the evening imagining peeling away that dress and fucking you over my desk in those red heels._

I passed through the knotted crowd as the drainer's were handcuffed and led out the front door. Eric was conversing with the police. I didn't see Franklin Mott anywhere and I walked calmly down the hall towards Eric's office. I answered him as I walked. _Then finish your business and come find me. Your imagination is the best I've heard all night._

I had just enough time to leave a sticky note on the door to Eric's office – it read _for Boss's eyes only. –S._ –and to squirm out of the dress. I didn't trust Eric not to tear it. Then I sat myself down in Eric's chair and crossed my heels on the top of his desk.

I felt Eric's black hole brain arrive at the door and then it opened and shut in a blur and I was pushed back from the desk, with Eric kneeling between my legs, my heels over his shoulders, my panties torn in his hand, and his face buried between my thighs.

I screamed and then laughed and then moaned long and low.

"This was not the plan," I panted as Eric made me clench the arms of his chair.

"Lover," he hummed against my aching flesh. "You should learn to be more flexible."

I turned my feet, digging the stilettos into his back and pulling him tighter against me. He chuckled and I whimpered.

"I'm very flexible," I hissed.

Eric sucked and I arched and gasped. Vampires can do incredible things with their tongues.

"I want you in me," I whined but then I was bursting apart.

Eric finished me, drew it out longer than I thought I could stand, and then lifted me up and spread me, face-down, over his desk. He held my feet apart with his own and I clenched the far edge of the desk, listening to click of his belt and the whistle of his zipper with itching anticipation. I rubbed myself against the surface and Eric clucked with disapproval, his hands cupping the fronts of my thighs and pulling me back so my clit was exposed to the cool air.

"Are you ready, Sookie?" Eric asked, velvet soft.

"Yes," I whispered. There was nothing, just his hands on my legs. "Please, Eric."

I was needy flesh and fevered, hungry thoughts and nothing else. I thought in that moment that I was, perhaps, what every other fangbanger in the bar was when they dreamt of Eric. Then Eric pushed gently into me, rolling his hips when he could no longer slide, until his hipbones touched the curve of my ass. He leaned forward and his chest lay against my back. His nose ran up the length of my neck, nuzzling loose strands of hair to the side so he could press a kiss behind my ear.

I sighed and leaned up on my elbows. It was Eric's response to my need that reminded me that what I wanted from him was what he had already given me; pleasure and trust and friendship.

"If it is too painful, pinch the back of my hand," Eric said and I wondered if I imagined the hoarseness of his voice. I nodded.

He began to pump, soft and shallow at first but it wasn't long until I was bucking back at him, whispering 'more, more, more.' With his hands keeping me from bumping into the edge of the desk and bruising myself, my body had nowhere to go when Eric thrust forward and could only accept the whole of him. I was sore, I couldn't not be, but with Eric's blood from days ago, and the tiny treatment from last night, the ache was elastic and only added to the sensations. I thought he would have me crumbling in minutes but every time I began to crest he would press in close and then hold still, licking away sweat from my back.

I wanted to beg and I wanted to show him how strong I was, how far I could keep up with him. My voice strangled in my throat as I tried to catch my breath between the bouts of his eager pace that made me vibrate with pleasure.

"Lover," purred Eric. "How much more can you take?"

_Bitch_, I thought, but I smiled. "How much have you got, big guy?" My voice was comical at best, it sounded like I'd been running a marathon against hurricane level winds, but I got the words out.

Eric's chest rumbled with laughter and then he showed me exactly how much; which was something I had only seen fangbangers imagining, and something that my body couldn't have taken for very long. Luckily it didn't have to. Eric went vampire speed into me and I screamed his name in a long delighted cry as stars burst behind my eyes. I lost control of my hands and feet and they shook and spasmed as my chest fell to the desk. My back curved and Eric hit a new angle and I shuddered and lost my breath as a second orgasm rolled over the first, the two sitting over each other; one violent and bright and the other a deep wave through my muscles. I closed my eyes and smiled like an insane person as Eric thrust once and then bellowed, his hands in a vice grip against my legs.

He pulled us back, dragging me across the desk and slipping out from me, sitting into his chair with me sprawled over his lap. I was still limp and I think I must have been holding my breath because Eric rearranged me slightly so I was curled and then he lifted my chin to meet his gaze.

"Breathe, Sookie," he said.

I took a deep breath and then closed my eyes as my body shuddered again in thanks. Eric chuckled and tucked my head under his chin. When I could feel my hands again – they were on Eric's shoulders – I let them grip and used them to lift myself up just enough to rest my lips against Eric's jaw in an open kiss. This time he shuddered.

"I think I'm getting better," I observed.

Eric stilled and a stab of disappointment gutted me. Then he said, "You have always been the best, Lover. But yes, you learn quickly."

Even if I had a hard time believing him – he had a millennium of sex to compare me to for crissake – I still glowed with the pleasure of the compliment.

"Where is the red dress?" Eric asked.

I realized then that I was in my bra, without any underwear. Where was that t-shirt Eric promised me? "I hid it," I said.

"That was smart of you," he said. "Now you can wear it on another occasion and then I will tear it off."

"It wouldn't be right. Lafayette paid for that."

"I kept the tag, I will pay him back." I stiffened and Eric shifted, asking, "Talking about money makes you uncomfortable?"

"No," I said slowly.

"Talking about my money makes you uncomfortable."

"Talking about your money spent on my clothes, or my phone or… just me in general. That makes me uncomfortable, yes."

"Why?" He wasn't defensive, just curious.

"Men, human men, who keep mistresses do things like that. Pay for clothes and houses and stuff. And it's not because it's nice or traditional, it's because the men are with the women for sex and the women are with the men for money. And I don't want that, or the appearance of that, between us," I said after I had gathered my thoughts.

"In a traditional relationship then, there must be no gift exchanges," Eric said and I opened my mouth to explain when I realized that he was playing dumb.

"Okay, fine," I said. "Sure, there are, but…"

"But you question my motivations for being with you. You think that if I am not allowed to spend money on you then that means I am not paying you for sex that we share," Eric said, his tone even but flat. I couldn't tell if he was angry, or was just trying to prove how reasonable he was being. It gutted me because it was painfully true. I didn't meet his eyes. "Sookie, there is sex between us, and blood, and business. But that is not all."

I blinked and looked up at him. He was frowning faintly, his eyes searching my face like he was waiting for me to read his mind.

"Oh," I said. I wanted to ask him what else there was, but I couldn't get the words out and then Eric was kissing me and it didn't seem to matter.

He stilled and pulled away, lifting his shirt off and then slipping it right over my head. He pulled my arms through the sleeves as I sat in confusion. "Pam is coming."

I turned beet red and tucked my legs underneath me, tugging the shirt down to cover my knees, as Eric zipped his pants closed. He was chuckling at my embarrassment and if I wasn't so wonderfully sated I probably would've given him shit for it. Or maybe I kept quiet because at that moment the door was opening and Pam was strutting in with her fingers pinched over her nose.

"Sookie, your scent is making the vampire patrons hungry," Pam sang as she sat across from us. "Not to mention what damage that finale did to the foundations of this building. I think Eric might have set off a minor earthquake."

"Enough, Pamela," Eric hummed against the hot skin of my neck. "What of our guest, Mr. Mott?"

"He left with one of our new waitresses shortly before Sookie's second orgasm."

"There had to have been a better way to put that," I grumbled.

Pam touched a pale finger to her chin and pretended to think for a moment. "Hmm… No, there wasn't."

"How much information could she give him?" Eric asked.

Pam shrugged. "Not much. Ginger and Belinda were glamoured to forget Sookie and Longshadow is gone."

"You're worried the waitress will talk about me?" I asked.

"If she's worth what we pay her, any information given would be done so unwillingly," Eric growled.

"If she comes back, I will fire her," Pam said.

"Hey!" I sat up and pulled away from Eric's nuzzles. "You can't just fire some poor waitress cause she got glamoured by a rival vampire. That's not fair."

"Lover, if Franklin Mott is willing to try and manipulate you while my scent is fresh on your skin then he is certainly willing to glamour 'some poor waitress' to do this bar, myself, or even you harm. She will be a liability."

"A well-pensioned liability," Pam added which was enough to get my hackles down.

"He was from the Queen?" I asked. Pam's eyes widened but she didn't criticize Eric's choice to share that much with me. He nodded. "Geez. Now what?"

Eric leaned back as if to consider but it didn't take him much time to come up with answers. "Bill Compton was quite young for a vampire, although good at his job. Franklin Mott, however, has been around for centuries. Since the middle ages. His fealty, when given, is short lived and usually arranged for one job at a time."

"Like a mercenary," I said.

Eric's eyes flickered with surprise but lucky for him, they didn't stay that way. I may have been a small town waitress without a college degree but that didn't make me uneducated.

"Exactly," Eric said with pride. "He is a warrior, not a charmer like Compton. It's possible the Queen suspected you of being protected, or at least capable of protecting yourself. Soon she will know that you are mine."

I bit my lip and watched as Eric and Pam exchanged a long, silent look heavy with meaning.

"She's your Queen," I whispered. "She can order you to-"

"She can try," Eric snarled.

It was a nice thought. "-Order you to give me up."

Eric stilled. "No. Not entirely. We have the contract and that would give even her best lawyer a run for his money given that he was the one to write it. Also, we have the beginning of a blood bond."

"A what?"

"Our exchange of blood," Eric said, his eyes turning electric and liquid, a sure sign he was losing interest in business and gaining interest in me. "The stronger it grows, the more respected our connection will be by other vampires. Even the Queen will be forced to take pause."

Pause was not stop, but I didn't say that. Maybe when you lived forever, there wasn't much of an understanding of a stop, a permanent halt.

"I guess I got kinda lucky that the Rattrays killed Bill, huh?"

"We both did," Eric said, and there was something in his voice that I almost wanted to mistake for tenderness, but then I remembered we were talking about people dying, undead or not.

"We could kill Mott," Pam suggested lightly.

"Not yet," Eric said, all the warmth gone from his voice. "He has not directly threatened Sookie. And now that he's reported to me, the Queen will never believe that he simply went missing."

"We just act normal?" I asked.

Eric pursed his lips and Pam huffed and rolled her eyes.

"Sookie, what Eric is not saying is that you should move into one of his safe houses and exchange more blood. Tonight."

I gaped at her and then turned to look at Eric. He was tense but he wasn't denying anything. "I can't! I've got the house and… and Gran's funeral is in two days and I'm not… I can't just. We said we'd wait and see if your blood affected me too much.

Eric brushed his palm up and down over my spine. "Lover, I know of your objections-"

"He knows if he makes you do it, you will not feed or fuck him."

"Pam!" Eric and I both shouted.

She shrugged and inspected her fingernails.

"Sookie, I will drive you home, to your house," he added as I opened my mouth. "We will discuss what to do next without my child's interference," he said with a warning glare over my shoulder. He looked pretty stern, but only by human comparison so I figured Pam was getting off easy.

I tried to get off Eric's lap without flashing Pam but Eric just lifted me to his hip with one arm like I was a toddler. Nothing makes you feel like your diet is working like having a vampire boyfriend.

"My dress-"

"It will keep," Eric said with a smile as we exited out the backdoor. I looked back as we crossed the parking lot and saw Pam standing, backlit by the light from Eric's office.

"She's worried about you," I said.

Eric raised an eyebrow. "She is my concern, not the other way around."

"Are you saying I didn't have the right to worry about Gran?" I asked.

Eric laughed at my comparing him to an eighty some year old lady with a sugar problem and then tucked me into the passenger seat of my car. He zipped around and was next to me in the driver's seat within a blink of my eyes. It took my car a few tries to set up and Eric was growling in annoyance by the time we were rattling onto the road.

"If I made a list of things I would like to pay for, would you promise to allow me to gift you at least two of them?" Eric asked.

"Definitely not."

"One?"

"I don't think so."

"You haven't even heard the list."

"This could make me angry, Eric."

"You're already angry, lover, I can feel it."

I glared at him out of the corner my eye and saw the corner of his mouth fighting not to lift. "Okay," I said slowly. "Let's hear the list and then I'll tell you whether or not I'm feeling receptive. Or will you just know because you can _feel it_?"

Eric didn't waste any time. "A new car." I snorted. "A new driveway. A state of the art security system for the farmhouse, vampire proof. A wardrobe of tight red dresses. An indoor resting place for me… wait, did I get somewhere? You will let me buy you the dresses?"

"I am not your Barbie, Eric. You're too old for them anyways," I said. But he wasn't wrong; I was curious about one thing. "What did you mean resting place?"

"Oh." He actually looked a little uncomfortable. "It is nothing."

"Tell me."

"It is only… if there were a light tight space, perhaps underground, I would not need to sleep in the cemetery."

I blinked. I hadn't really thought about the fact that Eric had spent the past two nights sleeping in the dirt. Gran would've been ashamed of me for the lack of hospitality, although to be fair, there wasn't anywhere in the house he could sleep safely.

"Sookie?" He was shifting in his seat, which was not a vampire thing. He must have been nervous. What was surprising was that he was letting me know that.

"Is that like the vampire equivalent of asking if you can move in?"

Eric frowned. "I would not be there every night. But when I was-"

"I'll think about it," I said. "It'll have to be after the funeral though. I don't want to explain construction to a bunch of guests."

Eric was quiet for a few minutes. Then, "Why?"

I turned away from the window to look at him. "Why what?"

"Why are you agreeing to think about that item on the list? If I can understand your reasoning I may be able to apply it to the others."

I laughed. "I'm not a science project, Eric."

"I just want to-"

"Here, I'll explain," I said. "This is a bad example cause you're hardly handicapped but if I were dating someone who needed a ramp to come into my house, I would want to build one for them. So they knew they were welcome."

"The idea was not for _you_ to build the space, Sookie," Eric said, still puzzled.

"I know. And I'm sure it'll be much more complicated than just putting up a ramp. So if you want to do it, then I'll think about it. If you can give me an idea of how it might change the house, I'd like to know that much. We don't have a basement so maybe it's not a bad idea."

"You are considering this because it is… for my comfort?"

"Well, yeah."

"I offered you a new car. A fortune's worth of clothes."

"Ugh. Don't remind me."

Eric shook his head. "Sookie Stackhouse, you are very rare."

"Oh please. Cause I'm so untouched, and unspoiled and I smell sooOOoo good. Okay, I get it."

Eric grinned. "You smell even better when I am inside you."

"Eric!" I screeched, reaching out to smack him, but he caught my hand in his and brushed my knuckles against his lips. I don't know if he was waiting for me to let go, or if I was waiting for him, but either way my hand stayed in his till he had gotten us back to the house.

**AN: Please, please, please with a cherry on top, review! This might be one of my favorite chapters in this story, and not just for the lemons. I like writing Eric and Sookie dialogue, as I'm sure you can tell.**


	9. Chapter 9

**AN: So sorry I didn't post this yesterday! I've had a cold since baby sitting my niece over the weekend. (She's snotty but only literally, not in disposition) I got home from work last night, took a dose of Nyquil, put on the BBC Pride and Predjudice with Colin Firth and promptly passed out. This chapter is tying up some loose ends from the book.**

"Sook! She was his sister, he's got the right to be here," Jason shouted from the upstairs bedroom as he and I faced off before the funeral. "Just like I've got a right to be at your funeral when you get yourself killed from hanging around vampers!"

"Jason Stackhouse, you watch your tone with me," I growled. Eric must've been rubbing off on me. "Gran wasn't speaking to or even thinking of that man since she shut her door on him when we was kids. And trust me, I would know."

"It's too late, he's on his way. You're just gonna have to suck it up and keep quiet. This is Gran's funeral, not the Sookie show."

"Suck it up and keep quiet is exactly what he had me doing fifteen years ago!" I screamed at Jason's back. His footsteps stuttered in the doorway and then hurried down the stairs.

I sagged onto Gran's bed, pressed my face against the old comforter that smelled like fresh bread and talcum powder, and screamed until I couldn't catch my breath. It was Lafayette and Arlene who pulled me up and cleaned my face and helped me down the stairs. Jason was at the edge of the yard with Renee and Hoyt. I could tell they were talking him down, and he rolled his shoulders out of their hands and walked through the gate as I stepped outside.

"He can't come to house after," I said. "Someone needs to tell him he can't come."

"Sookie, he's your brother," Arlene said gently. "Adele was his gran too."

"Not Jason. Gran's brother, Bartlett. She hated him. She wouldn't want him here. She kicked him out of her house years ago." I could hear Arlene thinking that I was being nasty, that everyone should be allowed to grieve. I turned to Lafayette and pressed, "He can't come to the house. She never forgave him. _I know_ she didn't. She never would."

"Alright, Sook," Lafayette whispered, wrapping an arm over my shoulder. "He won't come, baby."

When we made it to the grave, where the priest and the rest of Bon Temps waited, I almost fell backwards from the force of it.

_It's her fault_.

The same thought from dozens of directions, faces, familiar and strange alike. I closed my eyes and put up my shields, grateful for the small boost of blood Eric had given me the night before. We'd spent a fair amount of the night arguing about whether or not I should take it, until Eric pointed out that if his blood was really able to influence me the argument would have ended hours before. I probably should have been leaving my mental blocks down. Eric was sure the killer was coming to the funeral today. I had a small gun with one bullet in my handbag at his insistence. But I couldn't face the blame from such a large crowd, even if one of them really was the one responsible.

I suppose the service was lovely, everyone who spoke knew Gran real well and they said the very best that could be said, but I wasn't moved. I felt alone in this sea of people who loved in such deceitful ways. They supported me and Jason because it made them feel merciful, not because they cared how much we struggled. I thought about Eric and Pam, and how they cleaned the blood from my floor so I didn't have to. That Eric sent someone to the house when the rogue vamps were around, so that Gran would be safe. For all his promise of self-serving vampires, Eric had been more generous than anyone in this past week. Maybe someone could say he was seeing to the performance of his telepath, but I had seen selfish generosity in my life, and his was not that.

Arlene had given up on me at the end of the service – _She ain't even cryin'_ – so it was Lafayette who escorted me back to the house. Which was just as well since his were the only thoughts I could stand to hear. I was passed from visitor to visitor, avoiding their sympathetic touches that were laced with poisonous thoughts. The tables filled up with cheese casseroles and jello salads. I tried to make it to the door for a brief escape when I saw what was coming up the drive.

I realized I hadn't taken much notice of him in the cemetery. He was diminutive, wasting away in his old chair, hooked up and wearing down. Jason was pushing Uncle Bartlett up the drive and as I watched them hit a hole, rattling the old bastard in his chair, I was glad I had refused to let Eric pave.

"Lafayette," I hollered.

Jason looked up and glared at me, lodging one of the wheels in a pothole.

"Shit, Sookie, I told him," Lafayette said from just behind me.

"He ain't never listened before, why start now," I hissed. I reached just past the doorframe, behind the coat rack with my ratty old thermal, to where I hid the shotgun.

"Sookie," Lafayette said slowly.

"If I haven't killed anyone yet today, it probably won't be family," I said, but I could hear that Lafayette didn't really believe me. I walked to the top step and leveled the barrel of the gun at my relatives. "Jason, this is my house now, and that man is trespassing. Would you do him the favor of escortin' him far, far away?"

"Goddamnit Sookie," Jason yelled, letting go of the handles of Bartlett's wheelchair, leaving him stuck in the rut in the drive. "Look at yourself, choosin' some vamp over yer family."

"What vampires, Jason? It's daylight out."

"I remember him, Sookie. That big blond one that was out at the house the night Gran died."

Only Jason could manage to make something so innocent sound so nefarious to so many ears at one time. I ran down the stairs, shot gun in hand and Jason flinched and held his hands up as I rushed at him.

"That big blond vamp," I snarled at Jason when we were close enough that we were the only ones who could hear. "He was Gran's friend. He came as soon as he knew something had happened and he stayed to make sure I was okay and I didn't have to wash Gran's blood off the floor. Where were you? Aw hell, where were you for even before that, Jason?"

"I been under suspicion for murder," Jason said, his face red.

"And I've been question vampires and readin' minds to prove your innocence Jason Stackhouse." I tried to take a breath and the air got tangled in my throat. "Something worse just proved it first."

Jason covered his face, rubbed at his eyes and then looked at me all puppy faced. "Sook, he's family."

"Jason," I whispered, "he molested me."

It was the first time I had said those words. Jason knew, he must have known something, but Gran and I had never called it that. Either way the words hit him hard. His shame at not understanding my hate and fear of Uncle Bartlett made him angry with me but he swallowed what he couldn't help but think.

"Please, please, just take him somewhere else."

Jason nodded and turned away. "I'll take him home. We gotta talk, Sookie."

"Sure," I said, letting the shotgun droop as I headed back to the house where most of the parish was standing on my porch. "Ya'll can help yourselves to… whatever. I'm taking a rest."

I didn't sleep. I sat up in Gran's bed, gun propped between my knees, partly hoping the killer would walk through that door so I could shoot someone. And when that didn't happen and the house went silent, I crumpled. I beat Gran's mattress. I screamed myself hoarse, and I shook with unshed tears. I didn't keep track of the sun and I didn't listen for any blank spots so the first I heard from Eric was his shouting my name.

"Sookie! Sookie!"

"Here," I said, my voice a rattle, and I rolled over onto my back. I could see that the sun was only just down, the sky till dusky, and when Eric rushed into the room his skin was rosy and hot to the touch. "You're burnt."

Eric's hands ran across my skin from head to toe, ignoring my comment. I batted them away and scooted back on the bed.

"Don't. I'm fine. You're burnt, Eric."

"I'm healing," he said, and he was, his skin paling as we spoke. He reached for me again and I leaned away. He froze. "I don't remember emotional pain being so tangible as a human."

"Yeah, well it's been a thousand years. You're allowed to forget a few details."

Eric sat back on his heels, his eyes narrowing and scanning me. "Are you angry with me about something, Sookie?"

I sucked in a breath. "No."

"The killer was in the house today."

"I figured."

"But that is not what has you upset."

"It was Gran's funeral, why are you so surprised that I'm unhappy?"

"Because I have felt the pain you experience at Adele's loss and this is jagged and dark and much deeper. And before you tell me to leave," Eric said as I opened my mouth, "I will not, as I have not yet."

I took a deep breath and closed my eyes, and then I took another and waited, hoping Eric might just slip away in the quiet.

"Lover," he said and the word brushed against me as if it were his own soft touch.

"Jason brought our Uncle Bartlett to the funeral. He tried to bring him to the house." I knew it wasn't the whole story, or even the beginning, but it was all that came out at first. In the ensuing silence I tried to work up the courage to tell Eric everything, but he beat me to it.

"Adele disowned that man from the family years ago." His voice was cold and furious.

I blinked my eyes open and sat up straight. Eric was rigid, his hands in fists, his eyes drilling cold holes in the mattress.

I gasped. "You knew."

"It came accidentally," Eric said. "While we were discussing our families, our disappointments. I told her of my intentions toward you."

"When?"

"Shortly before you came to Fangtasia to find the thief."

"You called me unspoiled, untouched," I whimpered. "And you knew."

His gaze widened and warmed, the ice melting away, and even as I retreated from him, Eric wrapped his arms around my back and pulled me into his chest.

"Lover," he purred. "Nothing that man did, or could have done, would have spoiled you to what we share. You have been a victim but I have seen your strength every night we have known each other. The light in your eyes flickers, but it does not wane. And while I plan to see to it that you are touched in every pleasurable way I can think of, it will never spoil you in my eyes. Although I do hope it starts to deter other vampires."

I tried to laugh through my tears but it was more like a gargle. I took another deep breath as Eric held me and wiped at my eyes. I'd been watering his t-shirts enough as it was lately.

"Sorry for being mean," I said, snuggling into his arms a little more.

"You acted as an injured animal might," Eric said. "Which is reasonable. Adele would not accept my offer to kill the man. I don't suppose you-"

"Lord, Eric! No," I said pushing at him and leaning back to meet his eyes. There was too much in them at once. Hard anger at Bartlett, gentle care for me. "He's old and by now his body is its own form of punishment. I hate him and I don't want him near me, but that's not my kind of revenge."

"It is mine," Eric said.

"I know it is. But I wasn't yours when Bartlett hurt me, and I don't want you to do it."

"And your brother?"

"Jason's stupid," I said. "He didn't want to believe what Gran and I knew about Bartlett, but I know he was sick with himself today for making me hurt that way."

"I don't know how to ease you." He sounded genuinely frustrated. "You won't let me kill anyone."

I snorted and then shifted so that our chests were pressed together and my cheek rested against his. "You already did. I was afraid that you would look at me differently once you knew, but you never did. That's all I needed from you."

Eric was quiet, turning my words over in his head probably, and I wasn't sure I'd convinced him at first.

"As much as I would like to point out the opportunity for make up sex," Eric said finally, "There is something I would like to show you."

I laughed and pulled away, cleaning my face. I looked down at myself. I was still in my funeral dress and it was crazy wrinkled.

"I should probably change then. Are we going somewhere?"

"You look lovely," Eric said, which was probably a gross exaggeration. "And that is appropriate. Come."

"Bossy-pants," I accused under my breath.

"Did you know that when you sass me all I can think of is what way I would most like to get you naked, writhing and begging beneath me?" Eric asked, totally conversational.

I didn't have a response to that that wasn't likely to get me exactly where he'd just described so I kept quiet and stuck my hand in Eric's. He led me out of the house and towards the cemetery. I pulled back and hesitated at the gate.

"Eric, I've had enough of this place today."

"This will be different, lover."

We stood there together, Eric waiting patiently while I resisted, for a long pause. I gave in. We went to Gran's grave.

The earth was freshly packed and the flower wreaths from the service were waiting there. I had already started looking for a headstone, but they were expensive, and they took time so it would have to wait. The only real marker for the grave was a large white candle resting at the edge of the dirt outline. It hadn't been there during the day, just as the floral headstone, made of white lilies and yellow roses, had not been there.

"You did this?" I asked, brushing my fingers against the cool petals.

"Yes." Eric stood at my back, his hands resting on my shoulders, fingertips slipping under the straps of my dress to touch my bare skin.

"Do you have to go to Fangtasia?" He had been with me all of the night before, and I knew by the frequent phone calls he'd been fielding, that time away was costing him.

"Soon," he admitted. "For now I am here to provide you silence."

I sighed and my breath shook. Eric was going to make me start crying again, if he wasn't careful. Gran probably would have wanted me to say thank you, or tell him how thoughtful and kind he was being. But I suspected Eric already knew all that and would have just as well preferred not being reminded that he was being uncharacteristically human. So I just relaxed into my own mind, unfettered by unsolicited thoughts, and enjoyed the silence that only a vampire could offer me.

Eric had to leave before ten so he could 'enthrall the vermin' as Pam put it. There was a vampire hovering at the edge of the woods. Eric promised he wouldn't come any closer to the house and then he added, "But if he does, pretend you don't recognize him. Call him Bubba." Which was mysterious enough without the added instruction of keeping my cat Tina indoors.

I called up Sam.

"Hey Sookie, you alright?"

We were pretending I hadn't kicked Sam out of the house after his reveal that he spent a fair amount of his time running around as wild animals.

"Better," I said. I was glad I couldn't read minds over the phone cause Sam had been at the house after the funeral service and he probably wasn't very convinced by that diagnosis. "You got any shifts coming up in the next couple days? Being at home just isn't any good for me. I need to be busy."

"Arlene was just complainin' about her doubles," Sam admitted. "I could give you the lunch for tomorrow back at least. We'll work the rest out while you're here."

"Kay. Thanks, Sam."

When I'd settled that business I got to work packing up some of Gran's old clothes. It was hard when the things were favorites of hers, but other things were easier. I piled up the library books that needed to go back, checked the cupboards and fridge for fresh ingredients, and put together a grocery list that included cardboard boxes to pack things up. Then I threw out most of the food left in the house. I've never been much for casseroles and second-rate pies.

It was getting close to one when I realized two things. Firstly, I was tired. I'd been running on empty for a few days and nights where I tried to keep up with Eric's world and the world of responsibilities of working and seeing to Gran's arrangements. And secondly, Eric wasn't coming by again tonight and I didn't have any incentive to keep burning the candle at both ends. So I left Gran's dresser half undone and retreated to my room.

I was asleep before my head hit the pillow.

Some nights I can almost count the minutes as I sleep, and I wake up feeling rested and ready. This was not one of those nights.

"Sookie, wake up."

My eyes popped open as if I had only blinked. Eric was propped up over me, stark naked. It was not an entirely unwelcome sight, but it wasn't one I was expecting. I jumped and Eric swallowed my cry of surprise with a kiss. I shifted away from him and checked the clock. It was close to five. Dawn would be coming quick.

"What are you doing here?" I whispered, even though we were alone. I guess that's just how most people talk at night.

Eric pulled back the sheets and nestled against me, his hands pawing up my shirt. His eyes were almost entirely black. I wondered if it was possible to get a vampire high.

"Malcolm, Diane, and Liam met their final death tonight," Eric said, his hips stirring against me.

My eyes widened. He was talking about the rogues that came by Merlotte's and harassed me. "You killed them?"

He bent his head forward and nipped at my neck. I wasn't sure how to feel. My body was happy to see Eric, happy that he was feeling happy as it were, but my brain was a little creeped out that killing vampires was what did it for Eric.

"No," Eric said, his tongue flicking against my pulse, and I wasn't sure if that was enough reassurance to make me feel better. "I was informed. The house they were staying was burnt down, doors secured with silver."

"Humans," I said.

"Yes."

I couldn't say I was sorry, and I wasn't sure what it had to do with me.

"Eric," I snapped before he got too carried away. He stilled and held his breath. A little blue returned to his irises. "That's great, but why did that bring you to me."

"Lover, I need you to read your humans," Eric said, sobering slightly. "They were staying between here and Monroe."

"You're going to kill whoever did this?" I asked, knowing the answer.

"Yes." His voice was sharp. I was not going to get an inch from him on this. "It's likely the burners will lead to the strangler of women."

"I see," I said, borrowing his catchphrase. "I will listen in. And if it's daytime and I can find a way to prove to the police who was guilty, I'll do that."

His eyes narrowed. "You make a habit of challenging me, lover."

"Yeah. I do. And if that bothers you, there's a bar full of humans who would sell their first born just to follow one of your orders so you know where you can go. I don't appreciate you coming here all riled up at the thought of getting to kill a bunch of humans with a little helpful hint from me. That doesn't turn me on."

"Sookie," Eric purred and I glared at him. "If you think for one minute I don't rise for the day burning for you, then either I have done a poor job of proving my interest in you, or you are blind."

"Hey!-"

"I was on my way over to ravage you within a inch of your sanity when I got the call from Pam. My apologies if my lust for revenge was too tangled in my lust for your body." Oh, he was smooth.

I snorted. "I think I've seen enough of vampires to know that they aren't too picky to differentiate from all their different kinds of lusts."

Eric grinned and then his mouth was on mine, devouring my protests until my only complaint was a whimper as he pulled away. "You will turn over the names if there is nothing that can be done by human justice. As my employee, you would be paid for looking out for the interests of Area Five."

"Fine, but as your… human I wish my boss could've just sent me a memo."

"If I had, you would've been furious," Eric guessed. He was probably right. "The sun will be up soon."

"I guess we're out of time."

"Not at all," Eric said with a delighted smirk.

Then my clothes were on the floor and Eric showed me exactly how quickly he could satisfy us both until I was a limp, panting, puddle of pleasure. In thoughts, quickies had always seemed impersonal and perfunctory, but between our laughter and our eager groans this was anything but impersonal. We finished so thoroughly entwined that for a moment I confused the heavy beating between us as being Eric's heart, when of course it was mine.

He peeled my arms off his back and left a lingering kiss on my lips.

"The blueprints for my resting place are on the kitchen table, lover," Eric whispered as my eyes fluttered shut.

**AN: There you have it! I will post the next chapter as soon as I've finished writing and revising it. (Which may be tonight or it may be two weeks from now but I'll try to keep it prompt.) Please review! It would be super cool if we could get to 200 reviews before the next chapter.**


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